Pikey's Progress

Willinghurst -Pittance Lake

2012-02-19T03:06:00.007-08:00

Hurray ! After a month of flu, back pain, snow and ice, I finally managed to get out on the bank this weekend. However, with nothing else on, it was a Saturday trip to Willinghurst for me.

I was under no illusions that the match wasn't going to be a bagging session, the ice had only melted a few days before and even before then the Lake hadn't actually been fishing well, and I'm convinced that the carp boys have been fishing the lake and putting any fish they catch in Xmas tree lake, justa few yards away. Anyway after a month of inactivity fishing wise, it was just nice to get out on the bank - well to start with it was !

When I rang John Radford to book in, he kindly offered to pick me up (which saved Mrs P an early start) although I didn't quite realise how early it would be as he turned up at 6.15am, even before I could have my first coffee of the day !

Arriving at Willinghurst we drove up to Pittance to check that there weren't any anglers on it already and with the wind as it was, the number of pegs in and with my knowlwdge of the lake, the only pegs I didn't want were Pegs 13 and 14. Despite being near the back of the draw queue, there were plenty of decent pegs left when I reached the front but the one I picked out of the bag - Peg 14 wasn't one I really fancied. Arriving at the lake, the wind had now strengthened and with rain to come in the afternoon, it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. My tactics were to be two long pole lines (which it was almost impossible to fish once the wind got even stronger), an edge peg long to my left - which usually produces a few fish, and a chuck to the island.

I started off well as having fed all the pole lines I decided to fish the lead with bread for a while and after 15 minutes had a nice barney rubble. However, it then went a bit tits up for me as whilst everyone else seemed to be catching the odd fish, and despite me tring all my lines and switching baits on the lead, my next couple of hours produced one reggie on the lead and an ounce perch down the edge.

In the meantime Pete Turbull on Peg 12 (one of the golden pegs and best pegs on the lake) was still fishless and was so cold, he even thought about going home - that was until he started catching on the lead and with a couple of hours to go, he was leading with 6 or 7 fish, closely followed by Don Garnish on Peg 3 and one or two others who had 4 carp. When the rain came at 1.30pm I decided to just get comfy under my brolly and spend the last few hours fishing down the edge. However, that plan was scuppered when within minutes a big gust of wind turned the brolly inside out and I had to put the brolly away. I then decided to swith to a little groundbait feeder with three dead reds on the hook and just spend the remaining time fishing to the island with the odd couple of minutes down the edge just to see if any fish had turned up.

The wind and rain in the last 90 minutes were horrible but by dropping the feeder within inches of the island (even I was impressed with my casting) I managed to nick another 4 fish whilst everone else seemed to be struggling. As the whistle went to end the match, I knew Pete Turnbull was well clear with Don second but third place was certainly up for grabs. I was therefore more than pleased to nick John Radfords £1 and finish third overall with 5 carp for 28-14-0.

Result

Pete Turnbull..........Peg 12..................45-0-0
Don Garnish............Peg 3....................35-8-0
Dave Pearson..........Peg 14...................28-14-0
Ugly Harrison.........Peg 7.....................24-0-0
Martin White..........Peg 5.....................23-6-0
Richard....................Peg 16...................21-12-0
John Radford..........Peg 13..................21-0-0
Jason Morgan.........Peg 18..................20-2-0
Tony Yianni............Peg 10..................15-0-0
Swifty......................Peg 1.....................DNW

Next week I'm fishing the Match Fishing Scene match at Tylers Common, a venue I've never seen, let alone fished before so that should be interesting.

Ribbon Lake - Sumners Pond

2012-01-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

There's good news and bad news this week for regular readers. The bad news is that having organised the Match Fishing Scene match at Sumners Pond, my weekend went something like this.............went home early from work on Friday feeling like poo, spent the weekend either in bed or under a duvet on the sofa. The End !

The good news is that I have managed to get match winner Chris Nicholls to write a blog, and here it is.

Sunday brought a welcome return for me to Ribbon Lake at Sumners Ponds http://www.sumnersponds.co.uk/ a venue I'm quite fond of as it's mixed silvers fishing with not a carp in sight, it's also been quite kind to me to date with a fair bit of success there. The match was a Match Fishing Scene event being made up from members of the MFS forum so I got to meet a few people I had chatted with online but had never actually met too - that was a nice bonus. On the day Dave 'Pikey' Pearson was sadly ill and couldn't make it so Rick Baxter ran the match taking up the reigns at the last minute so a big well done to Rick. Ribbon is only a small lake so numbers had been restricted to 16 anglers, any more than that and you have to start pegging some of the real narrow parts and sport there is never very good - Rick made a decent job of the pegging though and everybody had either a bit of room or a peg in one of the noted areas. I drew peg 2 which was at the right hand end as you look from the car park, a decent enough area but not usually good enough to win from as a rule, the favoured areas are the wides and the bridge pegs - but the big difference today was the wind, it was blowing strongly but from my end of the lake down to the other so at least I had a bit of shelter, it was a bit swirly though and fishing long, either 11.5 metres or 13 metres, was a handful at times and I quite often had to let the pole go with the wind rather than hold it and risk a break - as actually happened to Terry Swan. Due to the wind I had already decided to concentrate my efforts at 5 metres, a line that had produced well in the past, with another line at 11.5 metres. Tackle was a prototype float I have been working on with Nick Gilbert specifically for this sort of fishing in 0.4gm with an 0.104 Double Strength hook length to an 18 PR21, this was made up with a simple spread shot bulk and a No 10 dropper. Bait was 4mm expanders, a few micros, maggots and pinkies, I also had a bit of ground bait too, a mix of Sonubaits F1 and green Swim Stim - when the whistle went I fed a few micros and pinkies on each line and a grapesize ball of GB on each line - not much but it's pretty easy to overdo the feed at Ribbon in the winter. I baited up with a 4mm expander and dropped in on the 5m line, the depth on this line was exactly the same as the 11.5m line which was handy - a few minutes passed and I got my first bite, a small crucian,there are loads of these in Ribbon but they can be a bit finicky and really you need to get the skimmers and smallish tench in there as well to build a weight, I don't think you can rely on just crucians but if you catch them you know you're on the right lines and if skimmers and the tench come along you'll catch those too, as was the case for me. I carried on doing the same and after an hour or so I'd had a few crucians and a couple of skimmers with a few small roach too.I hadn't seen very much caught, no doubt due to the poor windy conditions so decided to carry on as I was despite it not being actually that good - a look on my long lines never even provided a bite so I decided to feed it again and go back to the 5m line - that gave me a few more fish and the fishing on the lake generally hadn't improved. I had a few looks on the long line and nicked the odd fish here and there but it was hard work with the wind to hold the pole still enough, a shame really as the float worked perfectly but every now and again the pole would get whipped round and the float would fly out of the water - so, it was case of keep rotating between my lines looking for bites and add the odd fish to the net.I ended up weighing in 9lb 7oz of crucians, skimmers, roach and a couple of the 12oz-14oz tench for a win, 2nd was jaap stam (Martyn Dwayne) with 8-1-0 and 3rd was Shedful (Dave Speller) with 7-15-0 from their pegs either side of the bridge at the far end of the lake.

Thanks Chris - No idea where I am next weekend but fear not I'll find another guest blogger if I don't get out on the bank.

Willinghurst - Pittance Lake

2012-01-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Firstly apologies to Steve Midgeley and any one else who has been waiting to read this in their lunch break, I've been really really busy and have only now (Wednesday evening) had a chance to sit down and compile my report. Following last weeks disasterous 1 carp performance on John's Lake and with the open match due to be on it this week, I hastilly booked a match for 10 of us on Pittance and before I left the fishery I'd sold out.
Plummers arrived at 7am on Sunday morning and despite me having purchased a new slim rod bag and managed to put all my gear and bait in my box so I could leave my bait bag at home, we still struggled to get two lots of gear into his BMW M3. Arriving at Willinghurst Jeff Simmons had forgotten to turn up so we were down to nine pegs only which was actually much better as I could put in all the pegs I really wouldn't have minded. There were still some I'd obviously have preferrred like 12,16 and 5 but I really wasn't worried where I drew. For those interested, I'd pegged 1,3,5,7,10,12,14,16 and 18. At 8.30am following a very nice egg and bacon sandwich courtesy of Sue the new cabin supremo, the draw commenced and with just two pegs left in the bag I was quite excited as my favourite Peg 5 was still in the bag. Luckily for me Windy Ben (Emery) drew Peg 10 and I was left with a decent chance of winning (or so I thought). We made our way up to the lake and as we arrived I noticed that the wind was strong and cold and blowing from from Pegs 17 and 18 up to the dam end (Pegs 7 and 10). My plan of attack was to fish a lead to the island or at least in the open water off the island, a pole at 13 metres and a longish pole down the edge. Bait was to be dead maggotts and corn on the pole lines with a touch of Marukyu 130 GB (that I'd scrounged off Ben) and bread / Corn on the lead. Unfortunately the match was much the same as the previous weeks as despite switching about on all the lines, I couldn't get a bite anywhere. Just as I'd started an angel appeared before me laden with an insulated bag full of hot tomato soup and some french bread (it was actually Sue and at that point I think I fell in love again) !! With 45 minutes to go, I was still fishless but still felt I was in with a chance of framing if the fish turned up in my edge peg. Malcolm Heaver on Peg 12 was likely to win as he already had 5 or 6 fish fishing corn to the island on the lead whilst Gary Simmons on Peg 7 had caught 4 lumps down the edge but the next best was "The man in Black" Geoff Dickenson who'd had three fish on the lead from Peg 14. My hopes were raised considerably when my three dead reds were picked up by a fish in my edge peg and after a brief tussle, I netted a nice Barny Rubble. Unfortunately no more fish showed for me in the last half hour and at the weigh in my one fish pulled the needle round to 12-14-0, a nice fish but unfortunately a bit of a billy no mates as was obviously swiming about on his own. As expected Malcolm's 8 fish went 47lb ahead of Gary's 4 fish for 34lb. Geoff's 3 carp went 15-4-0 and that pushed me into the one out of the frame spot !

So that was it, 2 carp in two weeks isn't exactly exciting stuff and this weekend I have a Match Fishing Scene match on the Ribbon Lake at Sumners Pond, so don't expect a report next week on story of how I had a bite a chuck.

Willinghurst - John's Lake

2012-01-09T11:03:00.000-08:00

Right, this shouldn't take long ! Sunday saw me taking part in the Match Fishing Scene Clubman of the Year Southern Team qualifier on John's Lake. It was the first of three qualifiers to help Captain Terry Turnip (no that isn't his real name) to select a team for the forthcoming 1st round away to Feltham & Twickenham on Eric's Lake.

Going to bed Saturday night I was a bit concerned about the size of the moon as last time we fished the lake after a full moon the lake fished really hard. Anyway having got ready for bed, we set the alarm for a 6.30am start and entered the land of nod. Six thirty came and went as did 7.30am and then Mrs P looked at the clock and announced that the alarm hadn't gone off and it was now ten to eight.

I went downstairs, grabbed the phone and reported in before murdering a pint of maggotts and loading up the car. Although Willinghurst is regarded as my local venue, it is still half an hour away but we still managed to get there by 9.10am. I got quite excited as we drove up the drive to the lake as there were two big gaps in the pegging between pegs 12-20 (which is usually the best area and I'm sure one of them was mine. Unfortunately, they weren't and Peg 39 (which I really didn't fancy) was to be my home for the foreseeable future. Tactics for the day were to be a lead with bread,corn, and boilies hoping for a few carp with a switch to the GB Feeder or method if that wasn't producing. I also decided on two long pole lines at 10 and 2 o'clock and a short line at 7 metres.

Having left home in a rush, I'd managed to forget my bottle of drink and as I've given myself a migrainne before now by not drinking enough whilst fishing, I made my way to the cabin for a couple of cans - oh yes and a bacon sandwich as I'd had no breakfast ! As I left teh cabin I heard the "All In" and as I made my way past Plummers, he was already playing a carp he'd caught on the feeder. Arriving back at my peg, I fed four big balls of GB with a few loose offerings on one of the long lines and one ball on the other. I also balled in 4 balls at 7 metres. It may sound excessive for a winter match where you are looking to catch silvers but my past experience of fishing the lake and watching others is that they do love a bit of grub.

I then lobbed out a lead with bread on the hair rig and waited. Ten minutes later the tip went round and I soon had my first fish in the net, a carp of about 2lb. Despite switching hookbaits and casting about the peg I had no more fish in the following hour. Having left my pole lines to settle, I was now ready to bag up ! However, the first problem was that I couldn't now remember if I'd cupped my bait in line with Peg 17 or 19 on the far bank ! Don't laugh, you'll all be old one day !!!

Anyway that's it really ! I spent the rest of the match switching between the pole and lead and apart from one brief tussle with a foulhooked carp on the pole line that was the end of my match.
With only the top 10 in the match scoring points (or so I thought), I knew I was outside the top 10 so put my solitary carp back and made my way to the clubhouse for a welcome cuppa.

Result

Kev Bennett...................Peg 45.................13-12-0
Ricky Baxter..................Peg 14..................8-15-0
Martyn Dwayne............Peg 35.................8-8-0
Plummers......................Peg 23..................8-6-0
Terry Turnip.................Peg 26.................6-8-0
John Rhodes..................Peg 37..................6-8-0

With nothing planned for next week, I hastily arranged a match on Pittance lake but before then I have a trip to Ribbon Lake with Rick on wednesday to look forward to - so pop back later in the week to see how we got on.

Pikey V Plummers - The Big Match

2011-12-31T04:47:00.000-08:00

Having spent days ringing round trying to find a decent match to fish on New Year's day, I finally gave up and admitted defeat. However, as Plummers hadn't been out fishing for months (on advice from the Doctor) and was itching to get out, I suggested we have a special challenge match on the club ponds round the corner.
Plummers duly arrived for breakfast as instructed at 8am which was a major surprise as I still expected him to be 30 minutes early as usual, and after a coffee and bacon roll breakfast, we made our way to the ponds. Plummers drove whilst I walked as it would have taken as long to load and unload the car as it takes to walk there !
Being the generous chap that I am I gave Plummers choice of peg and he chose Peg 3 which is in the corner and has won three of the last four matches. With someone already fishing my favourite Peg, I chose Peg 5 which for those in the know is the waste paper bin peg and one I framed from 2 matches ago. The peg has a lovely bay in the rushes which lay over the water and although I also intented to fish straight out in front, the bay would be my main line of attack.

Rig wise there was only one, a Hillbilly Pikey Paste float on 0.18 G Line to a Size 14 Gamakatsu Pellett hook. Baitwise I intended to fish small pieces of paste but also had some 4 and 6mm expanders, some Marukyu JPZ pelletts and some micro pelletts and Marukyu EFG130 to feed. Ray had started fishing and already had a few carp so I knew that they were feeding and was looking forward to netting a few fish. I fed both lines with some micro's and some loose EFG130 and shipped out with a 10mm size piece of paste. Although no bites came in the next 5 minutes, I knew it was only a matter of time until the carp found the bait and sure enough, I then had 2 in 2 put ins.

Plummers was still biteless and with a 2-0 lead I thought I'd be sociable and go and have a chat. After a bit of banter which mainly involved how rubbish he was, I returned to my peg to continue the thrashing ! A number of fish followed (like this one) all on paste before the score soon became Pikey 10 Plummers 0 and I started to feel a bite sorry for the lad............well almost.

By this time I already knew that the match was won and was getting a bit bored. I knew I could still keep catching in the edge but spent a while trying to catch straight out in front, just to give the edge a rest. After catching a few there, another visit to Plummers was in order and whilst there he netted his first fish - Hurray ! Another decent hour of weather followed but with the score now being 20-6 the heavens opened and we then had an hour and a half of heavy rain. By 3pm we'd both had enough and with the final score being 25-8, I was declared the winner. We didn't bother weighing the fish but estimated I probably had 60lb odd so not a bad winters haul at all. And, if you are wondering what Plummers £10 note looks like, then here it is - and now has a new home in my wallet !

Lizzard Lake - West Drayton

2011-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

The week between Christmas and the New Year has now become the home of the Match Fishing Scene South Xmas match and for the past two years has taken place at Lizzard Lakes at West Drayton - not the most picturesque area I have fished but in the right conditions the lake can fish very well. Last year was rock hard with the lake being mostly frozen over, and on a very cold day Hathers pipped me to first place by a few ounces as we both weighed in 9lb odd, with my roach net plus 3 small carp all falling to punched bread. Things were looking good for this year until the recent cold snap knocked the fishing on the head a bit but whatever happened, it would be better than last year for most. Match day arrived and after Hathers picked me at 6.45, we arrived for our pre match brecky stop, Poppins Restaurent in West Drayton at just before 7.30, where we met up with most of the days competitors, including Terry Turnip and Sparky ! After a hearty breakfast we followed Rick to the fishery just 5 minutes away and then whilst Rick sorted out the draw stuff I went round the lake to peg it with local expert Macca. Having been given a run down of the pegs, I was hoping to draw pegs 1,2,3,13,14 or 22-25. As I stood holding the draw bag as the draw took place I could see all the pegs I fancied being drawn until there were just 2 left and only myself and Justin Case (Paul Laws) to draw. I quite fancied Peg 14 as it was the end peg on the right hand bank and had a fair bit of room to go at. In went JC's hand to the draw bag and I was slightly relieved to seem him emerge with Peg 5 !Baitwise, I had pinned my faith in Bread, as I'd caught carp on it last year, some liquidized bread for feed on the pole and some casters for an alternative roach bait. I set up a straight lead with a size 14 B911 hook to 0.18 G Line to fish with three discs of 10mm bread on a hair rig. I also set up two pole rigs one to fish for carp with bread at 8 metres (which I only had a few roach on) and a rig to fish for roach at 13 metres at 10 and 2 o'clock. On the whistle I fed all lines with some casters and one with a pot of liquidized bread and lobbed out the lead towards the end of the lake to my right. Those in the know had all said that you should spend the first hour fishing the lead to hopefully nick a couple of carp so who was I to argue as one carp could be worth a lot of roach. After a minute or so the wind gusted and blew my top kits towards the lake. I stood up off my box to retrieve them and when I sat back down, my rod was almost off the rest and I soon netted a 5lb carp - not a bad start at all.

In the next hour by casting about the peg I had a further 8 carp from 2lb to 8lb before it died completely. I spent the next few hours switching between the pole and lead but only added a few roach and one skimmer to my nets before nicking another 3 carp in the final hour on the lead. We started the weigh in at my peg an after a couple of weighs (which included my bulging roach and skimmer net of 1-6-0) my total weight was recorded as 42-2-0 which fortunately for me (and Hathers who I was going halves with) was enough to take the top spot ahead of Nick Darke 28-8-0 and Darren Wright with 27-4-0. All in all the lake fished a lot better than last year and whilst I would rather have caught on the pole, it was nevertheless nice to win and pick up my first MFS Champions League points as I try to qualify for next years final at the Glebe. Not sure what is happening Sunday as I had a desperate call from my mate Plummers who is desperate to get out fishing, so I'm searching for somewhere for us to go.

Long Copse Ponds - Sunday 18th December 2011

2011-12-17T12:12:00.000-08:00

Regular readers will know that my club Leatherhead DAS have two ponds just 150 yards from my house and in winter we have a few matches on them. Although they are only small ( we limit the pegging to 20 pegs), both lakes contain small carp, fantails and goldfish which I expect were ex pets that people have dumped in the ponds, roach, rudd and I'm told some bream (although in all the times I've fished there, I've never seen one). This week was our Xmas match which I always attend and try to win a jar of pickled onions no matter where I finish in the prize list ! The two lakes differ in as much as that the top lake holds slightly bigger carp and to catch a decent weight you usually have to fish against the rush beds that lay across the surface in some pegs. This involves fishing stronger line and elastic that is suitable for pulling fish away from snags. I now set up one 0.18 edge rig for paste which usually works well even in winter and another edge rig with 0.16 and a smaller hook for fishing an expander, JPZ pellet or piece of corn. I also set up a lighter 0.14 / 0.12 rig with white hydro for fishing a long line straight out in front at 12 metres. The bottom pond is a bit deeper and holds much smaller carp, loads of small stunted crucians, plus roach, rudd and a few perch. I've had some proper days fishing the bottom pond, it's lovely fishing just kindering in micros and fishing expanders on the hook. However, when I had a quick walk around the pond on Saturday morning the water was very clear, one corner of the top pond still had a covering of thin ice on it and with the weather forecast threeatening Minus 3 degrees for Saturday night, I thought the fishing would probably be a bit tougher than normal, especially if you didn't draw one of the feature rushes pegs on the top lake. With an 8.30 draw, I woke at 7am to see that we had indeed had another heavy frost, most of my gear and bait was ready and all I had to do was cook some bacon and mushrooms for my rolls, devour them both with a cup of coffee and walk round the corner to help out with the pegging etc.

Arriving at the ponds I was a little suprised to see Hathers finger nails looked slightly different to normal. He assures me that he had been out until 2.30am at a fancy dress party and couldn't be bothered to take the nail varnish off................but I'm not so sure ! Having checked out Eric's pegging, the two pegs I really really really didn't want were 9 and 10 as they are at the wrong end of the top lake, they never fish well, even in the summer and they are in the shade meaning that you sit and shiver whilst the other end of the lake are bathed in sunshine. Anyway, into the draw bag went my right hand and out came........Peg 10 ! Oh well, that's life I said (or something like it), there was no use moaning, I was on a mission to win those pickled onions so trundled off to my peg. I arrived to find, like most of the lake, a thin covering (about 1/4 inch) of ice covering my peg. Unpeturbed I screwed my weed cutter to my landing net handle, attached it to my edge pole and set about cutting myself a decent peg in the ice.
And, I'm sure you will agree it looks superb. I could see around the lake that nobody else was properly prepared for the ice, with most breaking out their pegs with landing net handles up to about 8 feet out whilst my peg went to 12 metres ! As it was Christmas I decided to do my good deed and offer to cut a few peoples pegs for them. An hour later I was back at my swim having cut out another 9 pegs, and how was I rewarded for this good deed ? Yep, just as I sat down on my box some ungrateful little person shouted "All In" and the match started without me even having taken a rig from my box. Thanks chaps !!!! As there are usually very few carp at my end of the lake, I decided to fish a silvers rig at 12 metres (swapping the 0.12 bottom for an 0.10) and a slightly heavier rig in the edge in case anything was stupid enough to visit my edge swim (which they weren't) ! Anyway, to cut a long story short, I caught nothing on pellett or corn, nothing on my Marukyu JPZ's and nothing on maggott - although the latter was because I had none with me ! Regular club match angler Jack De Almeida was next to me and after he'd caught a few roach and was probably leading the lake, I went on a tour of the lakes to scrounge some maggotts from those whose pegs I had cut out !

Arriving back at my peg, I impaled a maggott on the hook, dropped my rig in the edge to ship out and when I lifted it up, there was a small perch on the hook, so at least I wouldn't blank. Fishing dead depth, I sat and waited for a bite, occasionally lifting and dropping the rig but to no avail as my little perch still remained alone in the net. Jack was still catching at the next peg and it took me a while to realise that he was fishing much shallower than me. A quick piece of interegation revealed that he was infact fishing 6 inches off the bottom. I immediately shallowed up and by keep changing depth I managed to catch a few roach and actually had quite an enjoyable match.

I actually enjoy fishing in the ice as because I am rubbish at feeding with a catapult, at least I can't feed out too far as the bait just ends up on the ice, which is why you will often see seagulls or ducks sitting about 2 metres from my pole tip when it is icy ! As the ice melted, the peg seemed to die until I was struggling to even get a bite. Forunately, the match was all but over and although I intended to watch the weigh in and take a few pictures, by this time the battery in my camera had died. The top lake was first to weigh, Jack had a creditable 6-4-0 followed by my not so impressive 3-14-0 and with the top lake all weighed Jack was in second place, having just been pipped by Nick Kenward who drew yet another flier in the rushes and weighed 2 carp and a couple of roach for 7lb. The bottom lake had fished a lot better with the lowest weight being 4lb and Hathers making it a weekend double by taking first place with 11-14-0 closely followed by the world swearing champion, Graham MacIntosh (or Mac to most) just a pound behind. I think my weight was enough for 9th place out of the 19 fishing which was good enough for me to pick up the targetted jar of onions at the prize presentation !

I'm not out next weekend as it is Christmas, although I may add a blog from the good old days, before I report on my Match Fishing Scene Christmas match on Lizard Lake at West Drayton.

Have a great Christmas everyone.

Willinghurst - John's Lake

2011-12-12T04:11:00.001-08:00

Having spent the whole of Saturday working at the London Lights Tour, I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been. However, having missed a weekends fishing, I was raring to go, especially as I had organised a Match Fishing Scene event on John's Lake at Willinghurst. I always enjoy the MFS matches as they are a decent bunch of blokes and nobody takes it too seriously. We also had the pleasure of the local nutter, Mick the Bookie's company so at least I wouldn't be last - or so I thought !!!! When fishing John's Lake you find yourself checking the weather forecast continuously in the week beforehand as it is a worse wind trap than Monks Lake as Ricky Baxter found out on the Wednesday when he popped over for a sneaky practice and found waves battering the front of his platform. In fact Martyn Dwayne who'd also gone, didn't even bother getting his gear out.

Fortunately when we arrived Sunday morning the wind was a lot lighter that had been predicted and also off your back a bit on the near bank instead of the usual "down the lake" so I wouldn't need my gram and a half floats after all.With 15 anglers fishing I was able to peg what I think are the better pegs and give everyone a lot of room with a blank peg either side. At the draw my first criteria for a "decent" draw was that I want a peg from 11-27 as 33-43 would have the wind in their faces. Next criteria was that I fancied drawing 15-21 as these pegs have consistently produced in most of the matches that I have fished or seen on John's Lake. It was decided that I should draw first so I gave the responsibility to Haisman and he drew me Peg 27 - the right bank for me, an end peg as well but I thought a bit too far up.With the wind off my back or slightly right to left, it wasn't too bad and I quite fancied it for a few fish. I set up a short line down the shelf at about 6 metres well to my left, one at 13 metres at 10'clock and a lead to have a chuck about for a carp. I fed both the pole lines with Marukyu 130 and some dead maggots. Both my pole rigs were Wilkie diamond floats fished with a double bulk which were kindly donated to me by Mr Haisman at his birthday party a few years ago when he was slightly the worse for wear !

I wish I could say that I then had a bite a chuck for the next 5 hours as fish after fish jumped on my hook and it took two of us to pull my nets out at the end of the match......................but I can't !

In fact for the next three hours I swapped about between both pole lines and chucking a piece of corn around my peg on the lead as both my keep nets remained empty. It wasn't all doom and gloom though as the Christmas Shop selling Xmas trees and other Xmas tat was playing a lovely selection of Christmas tunes over their music system to keep everyone in the right spirit.

Right spirit ? they must have actually purchased a CD of the worst, most annoying Xmas records performed by the worst artists you could think of and seemed to be playing it on a continuous loop ! After about 4 hours of it I think I'd heard it all the way through about 5 times and I even found myself joining in and playing two sections of my pole as an additional trumpet ! They also have horse and carriage rides there when you can pay a couple of quid and go on a journey of about 100 yards up to the cabin and back - anyway, it was funny especially when someone asked if it was Herbie's Taxi !

With two hours to go I had a small roach on my long pole but with Ricky, Shedders and a few others all catching small fish consistently, I hate to say it but it was going to be all or nothing for me as I was going to need carp to frame. It was obvious that the carp weren't really having it as although Tyrone had caught two, I think they were the only ones caught on the whole lake. I therefore decided to just cast a bit of corn around the peg for the rest of the match and just have a 5 minute look on the pole lines every now and then to see if any skimmers had turned up over my groundbait. Twenty minutes later the tip went round almost as soon as the bait hit the bottom and a carp of 2-5-0 was soon in the net. How do I know exactly how much it weighed I hear you ask ? Cos it was the only bite I had before the final whistle went ! Lewey next to me was blanking with an hour to go but managed to put a few fish together in the final 60 minutes including a decent sized skimmer and seemed quite excited to record 2-11-0 and in his words "Batter me off the next peg".

With a 3.15 finish I grabbed the scales as soon as the whistle went as I didn't want to be weighing in using a torch. Herbie was leading the far bank with 6-2-0 (no I didn't believe it either) until Tyrone plonked 2 carp and some silvers on the scales for 6-12-0. Reaching my peg, I weighed my paltry 2-5-0 and agreed with Lewey that we'd put 12-5-0 on the weigh sheet just to get everyone going - I told them I had 4 carp in the last hour !

Our jolly jape worked quite well as it seemed to wind up most of the anglers on my bank with comments like " You F ing jammy little bastard, shouldn't allow carp blah blah blah etc etc".

Shedders weigh 8-11-0, Ricky topped that with 9-2-0 and even the Bookie had 4-5-0. Oh yes I'd better tell you that Haisman had 4-15-0 and beat the anglers either side of him or he'll get the hump !

Whilst the fishing was tougher than expected, the craic was good and at least the promised rain only arrived once we were happily ensconced in the cabin.

Result

Ricky Baxter...............Peg 19..................9-5-0

Shedfull........................Peg 23.................8-11-0

Tyrone..........................Peg 33.................6-12-0

Heeeerrrrbbbbiee.... Peg 43..................6-2-0

Rolly............................Peg 21...................5-3-0

Next week we have the Leatherhead DAS Xmas match on the lakes around the corner from my house so at least I should have a few more bites than the two I had this week !

Furnace - Small Lake

2011-12-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

With me attending a pre Christmas family get together at my brothers house at Goring on Thames (which brought back memories of chub and maggott feeders to the far bank), Hathers very kindly agreed to step in for blogging duties and sent me the following.

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.

Willinghurst Old / Horseshoe Lakes

2011-11-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

If anyone from the BBC weather centre reads this, then perhaps you can answer the following question. How, when you have all the equipment you have to forecast the weather, do you consistently get it wrong with your forecasts ?

With a lack of suitable matches in my area, I booked on the regular Willinghurst open on Sunday, this week split between Old and Horseshoe Lakes. I had a cunning plan if I drew Old Lake and this involved fishing two long lines, one feeding micros and fishing expanders dead depth on the hook with the float shotted down to a dimple and lifting and dropping, with the other line being fed with Marukyu 130 GB with a few dead maggotts, and fishing either JPZ pelletts or dead maggotts on the hook. I also intended to feed a short line at the bottom of the slope at about 6 metres with 130 and dead maggotts. Oh yes, I would also set up a lead in case I wasn't catching and had to have a few chucks. My plan for Horeseshoe was...........................not to draw it as the only time I catch on there is if they are in the edge !
Fortunately for me I drew Peg 3 on Old Lake, not a peg I really fancied but at least it was on the lake I wanted and first indications were that the wind wasn't too bad. Although I would rather have been in Pegs 26 or 1 as they were even more sheltered from the wind but Peg 1 was to be the home of match organisor John Radford (see left) for the day. However, within half an hour, the wind which was supposed to be easing off was getting stronger and stronger, meaning my long pole lines were certainly going to be a struggle. So much so that I binned the dimpled float /pellett idea and decided to fish just one long line with GB and dead magotts, plus the 2 short lines. Having set up with the wind getting stronger and stronger I heard a shout from John on Peg 1 and as I looked round I could see something behind me blowing around on his feeder rig. At first, I assumed he had hooked a bag or a cloth but as I got up to help I could see that he had cast out with a feeder with no hooklength on and it had gone over a duck in mid air and tangled it up. Fortunately, after a bit of TLC we managed to free the duck and released it unharmed !
On the whistle, I fed all three lines with cup of Marukyu 130 with a few dead maggots in. I then banded a 10mm pellett on my lead rig attached it to a T Bag and launched it out somewhere in front of me. Regular readers will know how much I hate fishing the lead as it bores me to death but on this occasion due to the wind (and the fact that the sun was now shining right in my eyes), my pole line looked like this. I think the conditions actually helped me as I would never have spent as long on the lead as I did if I could have fished the pole and although the action wasn't exactly red hot, after a couple of hours I'd had three carp for about 18lb. A quick look on the right hand short pole line boosted my catch by one gudgeon and half an hour later when I tried the left hand side I had a nice chub of about 2.5lb.
If you want to know why I find fishing the lead boring then sit and look at this picture for an hour or so and you'll know why !

The wind which was supposed to be easing off showed no signs of doing so so I remained on the lead, just casting around the peg whilst feeding nothing and mugging the odd carp. With about half an hour remaining, the wind finally dropped enough for me to get out on the long pole line.
I knew from what I had seen and heard on our lake that I was up with the leaders but needed a couple more fish as John on Peg 1 was catching well in the edge and some were proper HORSES. Within minutes of going out on the long pole, I hooked a decent fish of 9lb+ which on white hydro was "interesting" to say the least. A couple of roach and a rudd followed before with Jason Morgan and John having one of their usual arguments, this time about the finishing time of the match, I thought if I could just ship out quick enough, I might just hook one more fish before the final whistle. Sure enough, within seconds of my bait hitting the bottom, my float disappeared and as I lifted the pole John called time ! A few minutes later I netted a fish of about 4lb which turned out to be a very useful addition to my net. So, after 6 hours of tough winter like fishing, I'd finished up with 7 carp, 1 Chub, 2 roach, 2 rudd and a gudgeon !
I was second to last to weigh in on Old lake and as the scales approached, 46lb was winning from Peg 11 - My fish went 49-12-0 and now only John could stop me winning the lake. As he pulled his net from the water, it looked close between us but it wasn't until Jason put the net on the scales and I watched the needle pull round past 46lb, kept going passed 49lb and finally settled on .................................49-10-0. I knew I'd beaten him really and just wanted to tease him a bit by finishing 2 ounces in front of him ! Yeah right !

This was the first time I'd been to Willinghurst for a while and it was good to see a few new faces there, apart from the fact that they took all our money ! Fortunately for me they did a continental payout so I picked up the £65 second place money for winning Old Lake. So, welcome to Willinghurst the Marshall family and mates, I hope we see a bit more of you over the winter.

Result

Graham Marshall..........Horseshoe 7........................52-12-0
Phil Marshall.................Horseshoe 12......................50-10-0
Dave Pearson................Old 3....................................49-12-0
John Radford................Old 1....................................49-10-0
I'm not out fishing next Sunday as I have a family get together at my brothers in Goring (which brings back memories of club matches on the Thames there), so I'll be trying to hire the services of a guest blogger.

A bit of an Update.

2011-06-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Before I restart my long awaited return to Match fishing blogging, how about this for a bit of madness.

Some of you may know that I am now fortunate enough to work for Rainbow Trust Children's Charity (apart from the fact that I don't get to fish matches on Wednesdays anymore) ! With it being our 25th Anniversary, our CEO Heather Wood decided that she wanted to do something memorable to mark the occasion. Having completed the full range of fundraising activities over the years she finally settled on ..............Wing Walking ! Being the supportive colleague that I am I immediately agreed to do it as well, however I then discovered that you needed to be under 12 stone to take part and with my well muscled physique topping the scales at slightly more than that (!) I was unfortunately unable to join in.

Anyway, back to the fishing, this weekends match was the third in a series of Leatherhead DAS club matches at their ponds just 150 yards from my house. Although the lakes haven't been fishing that well in matches this year, I have spent a few hours there recently and got bored catching as it was one a bung in whatever peg I tried, so it wasn't that the fish had gone, maybe just learning about match times etc like a lot of fish on Commercial fisheries do. For me, I'd taken the match very seriously and had even tied 3 rigs ! I'm happy to tie my paste rigs on the bank cos they only involve the use of a float, biggish hook (Size 10 Gamakatsu Pellett hook) and three number 8 shot. However, in some of the pegs you are fishing for smaller fish and I didn't fancy setting up silvers rigs on the bank.

Sunday morning arrived and a quick glimpse out of the bedroom window to check on the weather revealed... not a lot really, as I could hardly see as far as the road due to the heavy fog ! Having sorted all my bait the previous evening, all I had to do was prepare and consume my breakfast of two bacon rolls and a large mug of coffee, attach the wheels to my box grab the rest of my gear and make the short walk to the ponds. It seems really funny walking to a match but very welcome as I don't have to rely on anyone for a lift, especially as Plummers has now disappeared and Ross is off to live in Leicester.

The cold foggy weather and a few other local matches had limited the turnout to only 11 anglers which was actually quite welcome as with the ponds being quite small, the more room you have the better (like all lakes really). Having checked out the pegging, the pegs I really fancied were 4,5,7,11 and 15. Rather than wait until last, I decided to go for it and plunged my hand into the draw bag. After a quick rummage I grabbed a disc pulled it out truiumphantly to reveal ......Peg 5 was to be my home for the next 6 hours. I couldn't have been happier as this was one of my favourite pegs and one I'd been itching to draw for ages. The reason being a long bed of rushes that lay over the water for about 10 metres. I'd deliberately not fished it when pleasure fishing as it did require a bit of gardening (nothing drastic, just a few reeds needed lifting out of the way with my pole) to fish in what I think is the right place.

My tactics for the day were basically, two long pole lines at 12 and 10 O'clock (one at 12 and one at 14 metres as the depth was the same there) and an edge rig to fish in a lovely little bay in the rushes at about 7 metres along the bank. Last Sunday morning I couldn't get to a match as I have no transport so popped down the pond for a few hours to try a few different things out. The one thing I learnt was that the fish went mad for Marukyu 131 groundbait so my plan was to feed GB on both lines and keepan eye out for blows as once they found the feed they would blow like mad whilst trying to dig up the silt.

My bait list included :- Some 4 and 6mm expanders, micro pelletts and Groundbait for feed and one green paste made from Swim stim GB with some Garam masala spice added and a brown paste made from Marukyu 131 GB and some fine pellett powder. Oh yes I also had a pint of casters and a bit of hemp to try something different if all else failed !

I began the match by cupping in a ball of GB on both long lines and a few micros in the edge. The long lines in this peg were really only going to be throw away lines as every time I've fished the peg in the past I've ALWAYS caught by the rushes.

However, things didn't quite go to plan as after three hours I only had 3 carp for about 6lb in the net. Although to be fair only Pete Turnull opposite me on Peg 12 and Matt Jeffereys on Peg 3 in the corner were catching. I kept feeding GB on the long lines but with no blows to show on either line I only spent minutes trying each one as I was sure that there were no fish over the feed. As the fog cleared and the sun started to break through I began to get a few signs in the edge peg and fishing brown paste I started to pick up the odd fish although it was quite scary fishing as there were a few bits of old dead tree in the water just along the bank and if you didn't pull hard when you hooked a fish, they snagged you up. Although the bites were very finicky, I kept thinking that I would catch better on a pellett, either expanders or JPZ's although I never had a bite on either. At one time when I was really struggling I decided to give the casters a go so quickly tied on my proper silvers rig (0.10 hooklength and size 18 hook) and fed a new line on the edge of the rushes in front of me at about 7 metres. First put in I had a roach of about 4 ounces then managed to hook an overhanging reed when shipping out and ended up with the biggest birds nest in the world. As Strutty at the next peg caught 2 carp whilst I was pratting about with my silvers rig, that went up the bank and I decided to concentrate on the edge peg for the rest of the match.

With not a lot happening I thought that I'd cup in a ball of 131 in the edge to see if it made a difference. I'd been trying different parts of the peg but found a little hole right tight in to the corner of the rushes and started to pick up a few fish there, including two fish for 10lb at one stage which were much bigger than the usual 2lbers some of the others were catching. After each fish I cupped in another ball of GB and the fish kept coming, not exactly one a chuck but enough to start to move me up the field as from what I could hear and see (which was not a lot as the fog had now returned) only Matthew seemed to be catching now. With 15 minutes remaining I managed to trash my paste rig but luckily the fish had decided to eat my expanders now and I manage to add a further 4 fish before the final whistle. I did suffer one casualty though as when pulling hard to keep a fish away from the snag the 5th section on my power legion snapped ( I was waiting for it to happen sometime as I knew I had damaged it some time ago) luckily I managed to grab the section telescope the broken bit through the section, put it back on and still managed to net the fish - I think "lucky person" was the term my mate Ross used when he saw me do it !

Result

Matt Jeffereys..................Peg 3.....................51-0-0
Dave Pearson...................Peg 5.....................36-12-0
Brian Wharton.................Peg 14...................28-2-0
John Clifford....................Peg 11....................27-6-0

So that's it for my first match back, I'm not sure where I'm fishing next Sunday but if I don't fish I'll try and get a guest blogger as I intend to keep this blog updated weekly from now on.

Good to be Back !

2011-04-09T03:34:00.000-07:00

Well after what seems like an age without blogging, I've decided that I have been letting down my fans and will therefore be back reporting every week. Unfortunately due to lack of time I'd not really had time to sit down and complete a weekly report but have now vowed to take a lunch break every Monday and complete my blog.

Some time ago my litle mate Sconey (float maker extraordinaire) sent me a load of float components and the instructions on how to put them together. Well I finally got round to making them and the final results can be seen here. I'm going to try them out at Willinghurst on Sunday and will be reporting back on Monday with details of how they performed and the full match result.

See you soon

Dave P (Pikey)

Long Awaited Update !

2010-09-29T10:22:00.001-07:00

Well it seems like ages since my last blog but unfortunately a combination of work and Mrs Pikey hogging the laptop has left me little time to update my blog lately - and not a lack of success as some have suggested.

So, where do I start ? Do I run through the matches where I've drawn badly and caught bugger all or shall I just report on a couple of recent results on two of my favourite venues - a tricky decision eh !

Match number one was at Willow Park on my favourite Small Lake and with 18 anglers fishing the Leatherhead DAS club match, I didn't really mind where I drew. After a hearty breakfast and a couple of walks round the lake to help with the pegging, I drew Peg 11, almost right outside the clubhouse. I quite fancied the peg as it had a small bush overhanging the water to my left and with a five o'clock finish, I fancied catching a few fish late down the edge, especially as last time I drew near the peg, the chap in it lost some decent sized carp in the edge. With the bush being close to my platform, I placed my box as far to the right of the platform as possible so that I wasn't sitting right on top of it. My plan of attack - as always at Willow Park in the summer was to fish Paste at 7 and 12 metres and also feed an edge peg for later in the match.

For the first three quarters of the match I was picking up the odd fish or two at 12 metres but unfortunately couldn't seem to catch close. However, although I couldn't see everyone on the lake, I knew I was up with the leaders and was confident that I had one of the better edge pegs on the lake and if the fish came in the edge then I had a good chance of framing.

I'd been feeding hemp and 4mm cubes of meat in the edge for most of the match and although I had been trying the edge on and off since the start (as the fish are sometimes there right from the off) it wasn't until 3.30 that I had my first indication. My rig was basically a 4x12 Andy Ward paste float on 0.18 G line with a size 10 B911 hook, all attached to a length of Red hydro in my H10 edge pole. Despite feeding meat and hemp, paste was to be the hookbait as I've found that it is still the best hookbait and the particle feed just holds the fish in the peg.

What followed was probably one of the best 90 minutes fishing I had ever had at Willow as I started to catch fish every put in, a some of them were proper lumps. I could see that Plummers had been catching well opposite me and at the weigh in thought my £1 was in danger as his net went fractionately over 100lb which is a hell of a weight from Willow even if we did fish an hour more than most of the open matches. When my "Final 90 minute net" weighed nearly 60lb, I knew it would be close and when the scalesman totted up my three weights it came to 108lb and Plummers was gutted to have caught 100lb and still lost a pound ! Pete Turnbull weighed 8olb odd for third and there were a number of other big weights as the lake fished really well.

Last Sunday saw me back at not only one of my favourite venues but also one of the closest to home as it is the local Leatherhead DAS ponds about 150 yards from my front door. Not being a driver, it is nice not to have to rely on others to give me a lift to a match, as for this one I put the wheels on my box and walked there. I arrived at the ponds to find that Competition Secretary Pete Turnbull was not there so popped back home to get some pegs and draw stuff. Aftr pegging the ponds with 11 pegs on the Top Pond and 5 pegs on the smaller bottom pond, the Pegs I fancied were 2,3,4,5,8 and 11 on the top and whilst I thought I'd rather draw those, I knew you could have a days fishing from probably all of the pegs on the bottom lake although I didn't think you could win from it.

With only a few pegs left in the bag, I asked Haydon Woods to draw for me and he duly picked me Peg 15 on the bottom lake and whilst I wasn't that happy to be there, I didn't realise at the time that the alternative was Peg 9 on Top which Ross drew and I really didn't fancy. After years of drawing the top lake, I've actually now drawn the bottom one for the past 4 or 5 matches and not done that well, due mainly to the fact that I've been too stubborn and only fished paste - which is THE bait on the the Top Lake where the carp are bigger.

This time I'd decided to fish two lines with 4 and 5mm expander pelletts at 11 metres (10 and 2 o'clock) and paste at 7 metres and in the edge, where I hoped to catch late. I must admit it made a pleasant change not to fish with red hydro and 0.18 line as my rig consisted of a 4x16 Carpa Porth float as the lake is about 5 foot deep and you need to get the bait down to the bottom quite quickly with a Gamakatsu size 16 pellet hook attached to 0.12 line. The red hydro being replaced with white hydro and a puller bung should I hook any whales.

I started off by cupping a small drennan pot of 3mm pelletts on all four lines and began by fishing the left hand long line. I was soon catching small carp between 6 ounces and a pound at regular intervals and sooon had the carp blowing in the peg. The funny thing was that despite continuing to feed all 4 areas of the peg, I never saw a blow on either of the lines except the one I originally started on and the fish seemed happy to stay there as long as I kept feeding them a "Kinder" of pelletts every put in. During the morning we had a few visits from Top Pond anglers who reported that it wasn't fishing too well although one or two anglers were catching and I expect they realised I was catching as I remained at my peg for the duration of the match which is very unlike me !

At half time I started to use my other keepnet as I thought it would be interesting to see how the two halves compared. With the fish digging up the bottom to get at the feed pelletts, I found that if I kept adjusting the depth I could keep in contact with the fish but did have one slow spell of about half an hour when I am now convinced I was actually fishing well off the bottom and because I was still getting the odd fish, I didn't notice. When I added another two inches to the depth (and some more line as the distance between my float and pole tip and float was now much too short) I started to catch again.

A big rain storm in the last hour slowed the action a bit but luckily it had stopped in time for us to pack up and weigh in. Starting on the Top Lake Plummers put 39lb on the scales from Peg 1 and having weighed all but one of the lake, he was still leading. I'd heard that Don Garnish had been catching from Peg 11 as someone had told me he 'd had 16 carp which finally pulled the needle round to 51lb. I knew I'd caught a few fish but it wasn't until Pete Strutt weighed 34lb from the botom lake that I thought I might actually win it as he was opposite me and although I saw him catching well in the afternoon, I knew I'd caught a lot more than him in the morning.

Sure enough my afternoon net weighed just over 26lb and when I pulled out the morning net it only needed to weigh the same to win, and it felt a lot heavier. The needle finally settled on 36lb dead as my final weight was recoded as 62-2-0 a lovely days fishing and Plummers pound again - what more could I want ! John Clifford gave me a bit of a scare from the corner peg as I'd hardly seen him catch a fish all day but a few lumps in the edge late on pushed his total to 53-2-0.

So that's it, you are now up to date with my fishing expeditions and with my Winter League starting at Willinghurst on Sunday I hope to keep the blogging up to date - so come back next week to see how Round 1 went.

Willinghurst - Wednesday Open

2010-07-15T04:35:00.001-07:00

With some time off accrued at work, I had no hesitation in booking in for the weekly, "Old Boys, unemployed, sick, lame and lazy persons match" at Willinghurst and spent a lovely hour or so Tuesday evening stood in the kitchen pushing 5 tins of Lidls finest catfood through a riddle to make my Catfood paste.

As Plummers can't sleep, he again picked me up at 6.30am and within 25 minutes we were waiting outside the unopened cabin at Willinghurst, waiting for the 9am draw !

It did however give us a chance for a wander around most of the lakes and when walking round Top lake I really fancied Pegs 1,2,12,13 and any of the back spit - Pegs 22-26. However, having seen the pegging (fortunately we managed to stop Brian Wharton pegging it, as he does about as good a job as Stevie Wonder would), the only pegs I really didn't want were 16 and 18. Fortunately I managed to avoid those two pegs and drew Peg 10, not really a form peg but I did think I would catch a few fish in the edge late on.

After last Sundays comedy of errors, it was just nice to fish a half sensible match where my worst problem was that my cap blew off 5 times in the strong wind - in the end I tightened the cap so much that it started to give me a headache and I had to take it off.

For me, Willinghurst in the Summer is an out and out paste attack, so my Plan of action was to fish in the edge both sides about 5 metres to my left and 10 metres to my right (against the rushes) and also fish a line at about 8 metres, at 10 o'clock so I could fish "Down the wind". I had three carp early on then as usual with Willinghurst, the fish seem to stop feeding until about 3 o'clock when everyone would start to catch a few. Yesterday was no exception as I started to catch a few fish on the 8 metre line just after 3pm and then caught a few more in the edges as the match neared it's 5.30 finish.

Matthew (whose surname I don't know as he is new to Willinghurst), drew Peg 21 and following his second place last week, went one better, catching on and off on the feeder for most of the match and weighed 126lb. My 15 carp went 96-13-0 to finish well ahead of Plummers in third place on 78lb as I took his pound yet AGAIN !

Sunday sees us at Moorhouse Farm on the Sidewinder lake and as I don't think any of the club have fished it before (and I can't find anyone on the forums who has, it will certainly be an interesting match.

Stub Pond - Plantation Lake

2010-07-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it was Gonzo or Kermit but I do know that for a large percentage of the Leatherhead DAS match at Stub Pond, I certainly fished like a Muppett !

With Pete Turnbull away fishing a ten peg match at Gold Valley for £1,000 I'd volunteered to run the match. With twenty anglers down to fish, we had the whole of the left hand bank of Plantation Lake (about 30 pegs) which meant that we could peg 2 pegs and then leave one, meaning that every peg had a spare peg to one side. With the wind blowing down the lake towards Peg 1, the low pegs looked a favoured draw but he main thing was that you really wanted to draw an odd numbered peg as this would give you your empty peg on the downwind side.

With the draw complete I was left with Peg 2 at the favoured end of the lake but with my empty peg the wrong side. Luckily for me, most of the "Stars" had drawn all in a line at the other end. The one thing I learnt on the day was that as match organiser, don't wait until last to pick up your fishery supplied net, as when I went to put my two keepnets in, one had a wonky locking mechanism which wouldn't tighten and the other had a broken top ring ! This meant that every time I caught a fish I had to bend down and lift the top ring up before transfering the fish from the landing net.

My plan of action was to fish two edge swims, plus one at 5 metres just down the shelf and one at 9 metres. Baitwise, not suprisingly for me, it was an out and out paste attack, with a big bottle of hemp for feed. The strong wind made fishing at nine metres difficult as the peg was quite deep and the lake towing but despite that, I managed to pick up a few small carp and a couple of 7lbers in the first couple of hours and with 2 hours gone, probably had about 12 fish in the net. A couple of dispondent wanderers came down from the other end to report that Donald Garnish had 9 carp, Big Brian had about 8 - no I didn't believe it either (only joking Brian) and most of the others were struggling.

However, from then on, my whole match went tits up (or a bit Roland as my mate Sconeee would say). I'm usually very calm when things go wrong in matches and don't usually let them affect me but yesterday was the exception as I very nearly turned into a "Tackle Chucker"and I must admit that my language was a bit "Industrial" to say the least. I think the heat might have had something to do with it as well as I felt I was slowly being cooked in the humid conditions.

My list of problems went something like this:-

Every time I tried to throw a handfull of hemp in the upwind edge peg, the wind gusted and I ended up feeding my rod bag which was lying along the bank to hold some rushes away from the edge.

At one point when striking at what looked like "Proper" bites I managed to hook a fish which I then played for ages before coming off at my feet with a big scale on the hook - this then happened 7 times in a row !

I got snapped up twice fishing 0.20 line when big fish tried to swim off to the far bank.

The floppy nets were getting on my nerves as I had to bend right down each time to place a fish in the net.

The fish kept digging up the silt which meant I kept moving the float up the line and eventually the line was too short in the windy conditions to hold the float still. I struggled on, not fishing properly until giving myself a good talking to and convinced myself to stop fishing and tie another rig. I tied another one, measured it up against the other one and the new one was too short as well...........aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh !

One of the screws on the leg on the front of my platform wouldn't tighten properly and the leg slipped about 5 times during the match, almost pitching me head first into the lake each time !

I expected to bag up in the edge in the last hour but only had 1 carp there despite having a few liners and bow waving fish.

I got invaded by skimmers that kept knocking the paste off the hook and eventually put a small hook on with a 10mm sized pieces of paste and caught 20lb of them before going back to fishing for carp.

I did still manage to catch the odd fish or two amonst all the mayhem but knew I really really should have walked the match if I 'd only fished half sensibly. I finished the match with a last cast carp but with stories filtering down from the far end that a few of them had bagged up late in the match, I really didn't think that I'd even frame. Being on on eof the early pegs I grabbed the scales and Eddie Derrick from Peg 1 and we made our way to peg 10 to weigh back along the bank. Mike Mortimore's new minder Jack Almeida (he keeps drawing next to him and must get ear ache) weighed first and took the lead with 60lb but was almost immediately over taken by Don who plonked 135-8-0 on the scales. Brian then weighed 88lb before my two floppy nets went 124-0-0. I'd just sorted out the money in the car park when the board arrived from the top section which Smiffy had won with 116-4-0 followed by Ross with 87-12-0.

So all in all, a very very frustrating days fishing as I'd fished like an idiot and still finished second by only a couple of fish.

Next week we are off to Morehouse farm on Sidwinder lake which none of us have fished before so that will be fun, I do love fishing new venues - However, before then, I've just manged to book Wednesday off for a fishing day - don't know where I'll end up but it could well be Willinghurst. Come back later in the week to see where I end up and how I get on.

Good to be Back !

2010-07-02T04:16:00.001-07:00

Whilst I do love being busy at work, the downside is that over the past few weeks, I've had no lunch breaks and therefore no time to update my fishing blog.

As I 've had loads of people nagging me to get it sorted (well one actually, my mate Howard - he of the long hair and alice band), I have taken a break today just to get it updated.

My first trip following a couple of weeks of piscatorial inactivity (due to a family holiday and one work commitment) was one I'd been looking forward to for ages..................a visit to Roy Marlow's superb Glebe Fishery for teh Match Fishing Scene Pairs event.

As my mate Ross knows Roy well, we always go up the day before to have a chat and a bit of a dabble before the big event. It means we don't have to travel the 2 and a half hours on the day of the match and also gives us another opportunity to catch a few fish. Arriving at about 2.30pm we found Roy and with a corporate day on lakes 1,4,5,6 and 7, we were advised by Roy to have a dabble on Lake 2 as we should get a bite or two there.

We settled down in adjacent pegs and after 30 minutes, having caught a few carp between 1 and 3lb, we stopped fishing to go and help Roy with the weigh in. An hour later we were back at our pegs, where we started the silliest afternoons fishing I've had for a while. It didn't matter what bait you used or where you put it as every put in resulted in a carp. I finished up fishing a top 2 standing behind my box and fishing 6 inches in front of my platform, catching 4lb carp one a bung ! As we packed up about 7pm Roy came around and we then spent a most enjoyable half hour or so just sitting on the bank chatting - mainly about Marukyu as that is Roy's favourite topic at the moment !

The following morning was the first day of the MFC Pairs event and the eagerly awaited draw saw me partnered with Chuckle Brother Number 1 - the infamous Sconeeee ! Whilst I was happy with my partner (as he is a Glebe member and not a bad angler) I was a bit concerned how he'd fish on Day 2 after a night and probably a good bit of the early morning spent in the Longshoot Bar !

The Day 1 draw put Sconneee on a Peg in the middle of Lake 4, which although not a flier, he was more than happy with and me on Peg 23 on Lake 1. A quick scan of the weigh sheet revealed a little known angler at the next peg, a certain A KINDER ! That was just what I needed, I had decided not to fish the feeder (cos I'm crap at it) despite the fact that ALL the locals (including Roy) told me to do so, and then I get a superstar at the next peg.

I had decided to fish paste at 5 metres, feeding small balls of hard GB with some 3mm pelletts in and then hemp and corn in the edge both sides. I did also set up a paste rig to fish 13 metres and balled in about 10 big balls of GB at the start on this line, much to everyones amusement. I would like to say that this was an inspired tactic but as I only caught one carp and 2 skimmers over it, it proved to be a very expensive tactic compared to the number of fish I caught.

After about 2 hours I had 2 carp, 2 skimmers and a crucian in the net, whilst Andy K at the next peg had about 15 carp and to be quite honest was beginning to get on my nerves a bit as his accurate casting to the far bank was proving far too successful !

Fortunately for me, a few carp turned up on the 5 metre line and with 2 hours to go with about 60lb in the net, I tried my edge peg to the left for the umpteenth time during the match but this time the float buried as a decent carp took a liking to my double corn bait. Another followed next put in but then there was a bit of a lull. I then decided to give paste a go and having modified my long paste rig, I dropped it in the edge and within seconds the float had gone. I continued to feed corn and hemp in the edge and fish paste over the top as my edge peg got better and I started to catch up with Andy K as his feeder peg seemed to be slowing.

A fish of about 5lb on the whilstle was a nice end to the match and when the scales reached AK he put 113lb on the scales. I was confident I had beaten that and sure enough my final net pushed my weight to 136lb and a very welcome section win.

The following day I let my partner down badly ! I drew two pegs from the far end of Lake 6 (which I didn't really fancy) and to cut a long story short, I finished like a knob ! I fed too much, fished it all wrong and didn't bother weighing in about 20lb of skimmers and 1 carp as I knew I'd still be last in the section - Sorry Sconneeeee. All in all though I had a great time and am already looking forward to next years event.

Since then I've fished another two matches which I really enjoyed but you'll have to make do with a shortened report or I'll never catch up !

Last year I fished a club match on Lake 4 at Monk Lakes and after finishing 2nd with just under 100lb I was looking forward to this years return visit. We did have a bit of a dilemma though as following the USA's last minute winner against Algeria in the World Cup, it then meant that England were scheduled to play Germany at 3pm on Sunday ! For me there was no contest as fishing is fishing and if I wanted to watch England play footie I could always watch the highlights - which not suprisingly once we knew the result, I didn't.

With the weather men predicting the hottest day of the year so far, it was likely to fish quite hard but suprised us all with Donald Garnish winning with 192lb, followed by Smiffy on 162lb, Hathers with 151lb and then me with 132lb (although I was docked 10lb for having 12 ounces too much in one net) ! All my fish came fishing paste in the edge or at 5 metres. One of the highlights of the day was Hathers singing the National Anthem just prior to the England V Germany kick off.

My final match for this report came at another of my favourite venues, The Small Lake at Willow Park. It's another regular Leatherhead DAS haunt and one where I first started using paste many years ago. The matches have over the years almost turned into a Pasteheads V Up in the Water challenge as the two methods battle for supremacy. A quick tour of the lake to sort out the pegging revealed that apart from the usual feature pegs, the wind was blowing into the Peg 20 corner, so a favourable draw would probably be from Peg 18-22. As usual Plummers was one of the first to draw and as usual he drew a flier - Peg 21, whilst I hung back a bit and drew Peg 11, a nice short walk from the clubhouse but not one I really fancied - unless I could catch in the edge to my left by a small bush.

Fishing paste at about 10 metres I had three F1's and a 4lb carp early on but then the peg died. By adding an extra section and messing about with different paste's, I managed to still catch the odd fish and was having a good little tussle with Ross at the next peg as we went fish for fish for a while. However, looking round the lake at those still in contention, I could see that I was one of the few who had any sort of edge peg and if I could nick a few from down the edge then I could be in with a chance. I'd been feeding hemp and meat down the edge all match and after a few "looks" with no response, decided to concentrate on the edge for the last hour as I needed a few lumps to push me up the leader board. I then had the best hours edge fishing that I have had for years as I think I had 12 fish for about 65lb in the final hour and that included a blank last 15 minutes - except for a big fish I had last put in.

Plummers came round before the weigh in to let me know he had caught 36 carp - and as you can imagine I was really pleased for him ! although he did say they were all small (but would probably still average 3lb each). As the scales came round to me, Ross was leading with 71lb and then my nets totalled 108-8-0 and Plummers was 2nd with 100-8-0 and couldn't believe he'd weighed in over 100lb at Willow Park and still owed me a pound !

So, that's me caught up with my match news, I'll try not to get behind in future and will hopefully include some pictures next time. We are off to StubPond next week for another spot of paste fishing, so hopefully I'll have another decent days sport to report on next week.

Three in a Row

2010-05-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

Before I start my latest report I'd just like to refute the claims made on Sunday after my latest match that the time it takes me to post a blog is dependant on the result of the match ! It is always my intention to publish my blog within a day or two of fishing but sometimes in life things don't go as planned.

Anyway, Sunday saw us on the first Leatherhead DAS match of the season on the Old Lake at Willinghurst. And whilst I love fishing the club matches I unfortunately have to report the most upsetting behaviour by two grown men that I have seen for a long long time. Therefore if you are easily upset then as they say when the footy results are on the news......look away now !

Now, in the past both Plummers and John Clifford have both been known to abuse people using a method feeder or lead as "a trained chimp could do it" but on Sunday I caught them both fishing the lead and to make things worse, they came first and second doing it !

With 15 anglers fishing, that was probably a couple too many for the lake (yes I know it it has 26 pegs on it but it never seems to fish well with more than 12 anglers on it). The pegs I fancied (as did others) were Pegs 1 and 26 and after Plummers announced that he wanted Peg 26, he then went and drew it !

I had to settle for Peg 14, a lovely looking end peg (as you can see) but at the wrong end of the lake. Seven long hours later I'd had 6 carp and a crucian carp for 37lb and a section win by third default !

Result

Plummers...Peg 26......88lb

John Clifford....Peg 20.....66lb

Brian Wharton....Peg 22...52lb

With the weather looking good for the wednesday and another day off earnt at work it was Willinghurst for me. After about three hours of debating (a posh argument), we finally settled on 6 Pegs on Pittance (where I hoped to draw) and 7 Pegs on Horseshoe. The lucky draw hand did it's business and Peg 14 on Horseshoe was to be my destination for the day. Not a peg I really fancied but thought I might catch a few in the edge. With the lake being about 300 foot deep and the weather being warm, it was likely to be "Up in the water" or in the edge to catch. So, as UITW isn't exactly my scene (cos I am rubbish at it), after 40 minutes of fishing at 12 metres on the bottom, and with no bites or signs of fish at all, I deceided to have a go inthe edge to my right. With a large lump of paste on the hook, my first three put ins produced two F1's and a 6lb carp and just as I was thinking that I might not have enough nets with me, the carp disappeared and the roach turned up.

I then spent the next 3 hours watching my float go up and down as the roach attacked the past before finally going under resulting in a 4 ounce roach. With 2 hours to go, I had the right hump and having not had a bite in the left hand margin, I threw in 6 big handfulls of paste and pellett, then continued fishing to the right. Fifteen minutes later I looked down the left hand margin to see about 4 tails and umpteen fish vortexing ! To cut a frustrating story short, I did have the odd fish or two but fished like a total idiot (does everyone have the odd match like that from time to time ?) and finished with 48lb for 4th on the lake. With Donald Garnish winning the lake with 62lb I was probably only a couple of fish behind and really know I should have won it.

Ross drew peg 1 on Pittance and won the match with 82lb, mostly caught in the edge, just ahead of John Clifford on Peg 14 who weighed 81lb.

Leatherhead DAS match number 2 saw us visiting John Raison's fishing emporium at Gold Valley for a match on Bungelow Lake (See above - although most of the trees have now gone)With the temperature set to soar to 28 degrees and a lot of fish spawning, we were not exactly expecting it to fish it's head off. However, when I drew Peg 5 (the second peg on the bank backing on to Syndicate Lake) I was quite happy. I had a nice edge to fish to, complete with small overhanging bush and was almost as far as I could be away from the spawning fish which were in the rushes in Pegs 1 and 12.

As you can see from the picture Plummers drew another featureless peg !

Once again it looked like a day for "In the edge or Up in the Water" so I settled for an paste rig in the edge by my feature and one paste rig at 11 metres. Oh yes, I did also set up a pellett waggler just incase the hundreds of carp that were swimming aimlessly on the top decided to feed. Having fished before on really hot days and only caught in the shaded part of the peg, I decided to start in the edge and catch whatever I could before the sun moved round and shone directly on the peg. Although I had a couple of early foulhookers (which came off) I soon started to put a few fish in the net and by swapping between my two different pastes, managed to put 18lb of silvers (mainly skimmers but also a crucian and a tench) in the net together with 78lb of carp. Hathers drew on what they said was the unfancied railway bank and managed to put together 62lb of mainly pellett waggler caught carp for second place, followed by Pete Kendall who had 5 lumps and a few skimmers for 52lb.

So there it is three very different matches with varying levels of success. I'm working this wednesday so will have to wait until the weekend for my next match fishing fix. For any Wildlife lovers this time of year is brilliant with baby geese and dusks everywhere.

Willinghurst - Top Lake

2010-05-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me why I did it but with some "Time off in Lieu" owed to me by work, I had a bit of a brainstorm and booked in for the Wednesday open at Willinghurst ! I do love the place and the people who fish there but with a heavy frost for the past few mornings and a cold northerly wind, it was unlikely to fish well.

As usual Plummers turned up in the early hours of the morning and by 7am we were sitting in the Willinghurst Cabin drinking tea and waiting for the 9am draw ! However, after a bite to eat, 3 walks around the lakes and another 4 cups of Tea, we were ready to draw.

Someone in their wisdom had decided that we should fish Top Lake (although nobody admitted it was them) but with only 11 fishing and the pegs well spread, I didn't really mind where I drew. After the usual moaning and whinging about their pegs, I picked Peg 24 from the bag, which was actually one of my favourite pegs in the back spit.

With it being such a short notice booking (I only decided to fish on Tuesday morning) I had none of my usual paste mix ready but having completed our usual monthly shop at Sainsburys the night before, I managed to sneak a couple of tins of dog food into the trolley to make some paste.

My plan of attack was to fish two paste lines out in front and a corn line either side in the edge.

The water looked to be a couple of inches down and the depth in the back spit all over seemed to be about two foot, which wouldn't make things easy, especially when the sun came out and cast the shadow of my pole over the water.

I started by feeding one paste line and the two corn lines but left the other paste line so that the only feed would be the paste that came off the hook. As usual with most of the Willinghurst matches I report on.................the match started very slowly for everyone ! Don Garnish on Peg 26 had two early fish on the method feeder and Alan Harrington had a couple in Peg 2 on the pole but for the rest of us it was very quiet. After three hours I'd lost one foulhooker on paste but that was the total sum of my action as I began to rue my decision to book in - especially as Plummers - who was next to me on Peg 22 and also biteless said he'd have happilly gone to fish the Framfield open !

Switching about between the four lines, I finally foul hooked a carp (which I lost) down by the dead tree in the water to my right. As I'd also had a few liners down there I figured that any fish in the vicinity could well be hanging about around the tree branches so thought I'd try fishing paste as near to the branches as I dare.

First put in I had an indication that there were some fish about and then the float shot under only for me to find that the fish was already in the tree and not coming out ! I then had an interesting couple of hours trying to work out the best way to try and extract the fish out of their safe haven. Whilst Alan Harrington was well ahead and unlikely to be caught, I thought if I could just string a few fish together, I might just sneak second place ahead of Don and Brian Wharton who were still getting the odd fish. Fishing with purple hydro, as soon as I struck, I pulled the pole away from the tree as quickly as I could, and I if I could get the fish a yard away from the branches then steady pressure got them in front of me and were then easy to net. I would have liked to have used my H10 edge pole but when I tried to reach the tree with it I was still a metre short so had to settle for the Power Legion which was still well up to the task.

Other than spending time trying to pull fish out of the tree, I had one sad moment when a fish had obviously weakened my 0.18 G Line by dragging it through the branches and then one swam off with one of my favourite Hillbilly Pikey Paste floats ! One entertaining bit was when the wind lifted my brolley (which I hadn't attached properly) off my box where it headed towards Woody behind me at about 50 MPH, I did shout a warning as I thought it was going to take him out completly but luckily it missed and landed upside down in the main part of the lake before sailing across to Ross on Peg 10.

With 20 minutes to go and Don and Brian very close to me fish count wise, I thought I needed one more fish to have a chance of second place. As it had all gone a bit quiet, I fed a pot of paste and then went to rescue my brolly. Arriving back at my peg with 10 minutes to go I just knew I was going to catch another fish and as expected the float disappeared within seconds and I netted my 7th and final carp of the day.

As expected, Alan Harrington's 9 carp which were bigger than ours went 64lb to easily take the £100 first prize which as he quite rightly stated, meant he wouldn't have to touch his old age pension this week ! Brian Wharton then placed 35-8-0 on the scales before my 37-0-0 just pipped him. Although Don also had 7 carp, all of his were feeder fish which are nearly always smaller and sure enough his 30-0-0 was only good enough for 4th place on a day where Steve Gardener only had a few silvers and Plummers actually Blanked !

Sunday sees me back at Willinghurst on the Old Lake for the first Leatherhead DAS match of the season. Hopefully the weather will warm up by then, although with a lot of anglers on the lake, I don't expect it to fish too well.

Framfield - Spring Lake

2010-05-09T02:08:00.000-07:00

Some weeks ago, due to a bit of toy chucking on one of the fishing forums, I somehow ended running this match at Framfield - mainly because the alternative was to cancel the match and then I wouldn't get the chance to fish what is one of my favourite venues. Match day arrived and with the whole lake booked and only 15 angler fishing, it turned out to be quite expensive day ticket wise but nevertheless a decent days fishing.

Plummers arrived to pick me up at 5.50am and 60 minutes later we were sitting outside the Little Thief near Uckfield where I prepared to be fleeced for £23.24 for two breakfasts and two small bottles of drink ! What a bargain.

At the fishery Chris sorted out the pegging for us and with everyone having a lot of room or a noted peg, I really didn't mind where I drew. By the time the others had drawn Ricky said there was one number left in the bag and he then revealed it was Peg 71. Now my experience of Framfield told me that the near end of the lake is usually not good but as I heard that Calvin Lawson had won the wednesday match from my peg with 240lb+, it was clear that the fish do sometimes venture up there.

With local expert Mark Sandford on Peg 67 I knew he would be hard to beat but being the end peg and with so much room, I did fancy my peg for a weight. Although I could probably have reached the island with 16 metres, I didn't fancy fishing paste at that distance and settled for a line at 8 metres straight out in front and one each side in the edge. In the past I have found that Framfield is another one of those venues where some anglers try so many different baits and methods that they just confuse themselves and end up doing none of them properly. I had therefore brought some pellets and some paste so if they didn't want paste then I was going to struggle !

I started feeding all three lines with a pot of pelletts and then began on the longer line where the fish were already blowing. After 15 minutes, although there were fish in the peg, I'd not had a proper bite but had foulhooked 2 fish up in the water. A switch to the right hand edge was little better and after an hour I'd missed probably 20 bites, lost 5 foulhookers and caught 1 skimmer and one 3lb carp (which I was lucky to get in as it swam straight under my keepnet when I got it into netting range).

In the next two hours I managed to put together a few fish by switching about sizes and texture of my paste but still felt that I wasn't catching fast enough. I then decided to try and catch to my left using just the top two of my margin pole - I was convinced that it was too close to catch and continue catching as I would almost be playing and netting the fish where I originally hooked them. Still it was worth a try as I wasn't exactly bagging up. I threw a handfull of pellets down the edge and left it for 10 minutes or so.

First put in the float sat there for about 2 seconds before disappearing from sight and I soon netted a 3lb fish, with all the comotion in the peg, I didn't expect to catch again straight away but 10 seconds later I repeated the feat. I continued to catch on and off for the rest of the match sometimes it was absolutely solid and other times the fish just disappeared or became finicky for 10 minutes or so. It also went a bit "tits up" in the last twenty minutes when I trashed a couple of rigs - one of the floats shot out of a foulhooker and hit my finger causing much pain and copious amounts of blood but the fish didn't seem to mind a bit of blood in their paste !

I ended the match 5 minutes early as I had no more rigs set up and didn't really have time to make up another. Grabbing the scales, I made my way round to the other bank where after numerous weighs Ian McCulloch (Eels) was leading from Peg 49 with 118-3-0.

Moving swiftly onwards we came to the bank with the local experts on where Stu Williamson took the lead with 146-7-0 from Peg 60, before Mark Sandford just pipped him with 152-6-0.

My 129-7-0 put me 4th behind Stu and Mark and also John Reed who weighed a usefull 140lb all on the feeder. Whilst I do like the fishery, it is tough to compete against the locals when you only fish it once or maybe twice a year. I do however intend to arrange another match or two in the summer now I think I've got it sussed (although I doubt that I really have) !

Result

Mark Sandford..........................Peg 67.......................152-6-0

Stuart Williamson ....................Peg 60.......................146-7-0

John Reed (Mutley).................Peg 63.......................140-11-0

Dave Pearson............................Peg 71........................129-7-0

Plummers..................................Peg 64........................123-15-0

Ian McCulloch (Eels) Peg 49........................118-3-0

Keith Axle..................................Peg 42........................117-1-0

Ricky Baxter (Happy Dangler) Peg 47.......................90-5-0

Gary Haisman (Milo)............... Peg 50.........................84-13-0

Clive Pritchard........................ Peg 48...........................81-13-0

Tony Baker...............................Peg 58..........................76-14-0

Ross Nursey..............................Peg 55..........................74-13-0

Stuart Wilson (Squeeky) Peg 45.........................58-2-0

Reg The Edge............................Peg 57.........................53-15-0

Mick The Chippy......................Peg 62..........................27-3-0

On Wednesday I have wangled a day off work and for some reason (I know not why) I shall be going to Willinghurst for a few less bites than I had on Saturday at Framfield !

Witherington Farm

2010-05-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

Every year, the start of May brings for me, one of my most enjoyable weekends of the year, the Steve Ramsay Memorial weekend at Witherington Farm.

The event, now in it's 6th year brings together 36 anglers from around the country to the sleepy Hampshire town of Salisbury for two nights of mayhem (for most), a bit of fishing and a chance to remember a former fishing pal and raise some money for Cancer Research UK.

Whilst a number of the attendees stop of at Rolfs for a match on their way down to Salisbury on the Friday, I usually travel down to Withy on the Friday morning, arriving at about lunchtime for a sneaky bit of practice and a bit of socialising in the afternoon.

This year was no exception and as me and Ant Sparrow pulled into the Withy car park I could see that a few others had the same idea, as a quick walk around the lake revealed that Plummers, Haisman, Greenie and a few others had already been wetting a line. With my first day due to be on Cottage lake I grabbed my gear and set up on Peg 9 next to Haisman who had a peg like a jacquizi and between catching tench also seemed to foul hooking a number of carp. I intended to fish paste and due to the fizzing that any feed seemed to create, decided to just let the paste coming off the hook feed the peg. After a couple of early carp, I also had the foulhooking problem but found that by fishing another line somewhere else in the peg you could eliminate the problem to some extent. After a few more fish and a walk to chat to a few more arrivals, including my brother Martin who'd driven all the way down from Scotland to join us, the rain arrived and I packed up in the knowledge that not suprisingly Paste would be my main line of attack the following day (infact my only line of attack) !

An "Interesting" night in Salisbury followed which I seem to remember included £21 for 2 Ciders and Chicken and chips in the Indian restaurent and a £30 taxi ride back to the Witherington Farm house (where me and big bruv were staying) at some time after 2am !

The following morning I was up at 6.45am and went for a wander round the lakes as I couldn't sleep. Having seen the pegging and after a couple of laps of Cottage lake I decided that the only pegs I didn't fancy were 6 and 10 as they had pegs either side and nowhere to go.

After a hearty breakfast in the farm house, I ventured over to the Withy clubhouse to find a number of quite tired looking anglers waiting to draw. Every year I help match organisor Nicky the Bricky by doing the draw for my Lake / Section and in the past I have nearly always been rewarded with a decent peg ! This time I was left with Peg 13 and whilst I got much baracking from the rest of the section for having drawn another edge peg (which incidentally s0 did 7 other anglers in the section of 12) local expert Mark Blake did say mine was the one peg he didn't want and if I won the lake from Peg 13 then he would donate £10 to Charity. Now Nicky told me how tight Blakey is so if he was prepared to bet £10 on me not winning then there must have been some truth in his comments ! He actually said that I would catch 2 carp in the first 20 minutes and then sit and watch the rest of the lake catch.

With the same depth down the edge as anywhere else in the peg, I decided to mainly concentrate on the edge and just try out in front occassionally unless I started to catch there.

Blakey's local knowledge wasn't quite right, either that or I wasn't up to the task as I had a carp first put in on paste down the edge but the second one I was supposed to catch in the first twenty minutes never materialised ! Nevertheless, the match started very quietly for everyone on our lake and I've learnt in the past at Withy that it is quite often a waiting game for the carp and you just need to keep doing what you are confident in and they will eventually come. Although the fishing was tough, we were kept entertained by John O'Dribble, Andy T and Sconneee (aka The Back Passage Boys) giving a musical accompanyment courtesy of the copious amounts of alcohol and Indian meal the night before. I really hope that nobody lights a match at Withy after the weekend we had as there will be one hell of an explosion !

Anyway, as the match progressed I started to catch the odd carp and skimmer, as me, Andy T to my right on Peg 14 and Gareth Boycott (Welshmagic) on Peg 7 started to pull away from the rest of the section. As the match neared it's finish, everybody started to catch a few carp including Plippy O'Dribble who started to hook a few on his silvers rig and realised that blue hydro isn't really ideal for Withy carp as one made it's way to the island pulling about 30 yards of elastic from the end of his pole !

As the match ended I thought a slow last hour might have cost me although I thought it could be tight between me, Gareth and Andy T. Starting at Peg 1 Ricky Baxter weighed 39-8-0 and was still leading when we reached Gareth, who tipped 53-8-0 on the scales. Reaching my peg, my silvers net went 13-0-0 and when I placed my carp on the scales, I thought Gareth had pipped me by ounces until they added up the weights and announced ny weight as 54-12-0, just 1-4-0 ahead of Gareth. Andy T then gave us both a scare weighing 50-12-0.

Back at the cabin it was announced that Withybagger had won Sellwood Lake with 86-8-0 and Dotteddown (still half drunk from the night before) had taken Barnmoor with 52-12-0 of skimmers. Having fished the Steve Ramsay event since it started 6 years ago, I was sure that to win it you needed to be in the first 2 in your section on Day 1, so was well pleased to see Pate Bailey in third place on Barnmoor, as he is almost ubeatable on the Snake lake.

Having drunk more alcohol on Friday night than I usually do in a year I decided that for the sake of my health I'd have a quieter night and just pop into Salisbury for something to eat and a few drinks. Which judging by the people I saw, many had the same idea.

I awoke Sunday morning to find that the weather was strangely quiet, it was supposed to be raining heavily with 20 MPH winds but despite a drop of rain overnight, the day looked like being mostly dry, albeit a bit windy. Nicholas has been round testing all the platforms during the week and with a few tubbies fishing with us (mentioning no names) he had to leave a number of pegs out which made some of the pegging look a bit odd. Having fished the section a few times before and looking at the pegging on the draw sheet, I really fancied Pegs 43 and 31 as they had loads more room than the other pegs. Gareth drew Peg 43 which was the peg I really wanted as I'd fished it when practicing for a Fishomania a couple of years ago and emptied it fishing in the edge.

When I drew Peg 31 I thought that we'd both be hard to beat in the section as I had three blank pegs to my left and one to my right coupled to the fact that the wind that had now picked up was coming off my back whilst those round the corner had it blowing right to left which made it hard, if not impossible to fish a long pole.

My original tactics for the day were as follows:-

Two paste rigs to fish either side in the edge - I had to set two up as one side was nearly a foot deeper than the other.

One rig to fish tight across with my secret bait - Mossella Magic bread which I was convinced would work really well.

I also set up a paste rig to fish down the middle as although I've not seen many people catch down the track on the snake, Plummers did last year, so it was worth feeding heavily and just looking over it occasionally.

I started by feeding the middle and edge lines then stuck a piece of Magic bread on the size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook, placed some bread feed into my paste pot and shipped it across. The bread sunk slowly, reached the bottom and the float shot under with a 4lb carp attached to the end - this was going to be easy ! Unfortunately it wasn't as I think I missed the next twenty bites before hooking a 3 ounce rudd. I then switched to the edge where I had a couple of carp and with Sconneee at the next peg (although a long way away) having already caught 5 carp, I was slipping behind. However, I then gave myself a good talking too and set myself a target of 3 carp an hour which would see me finish up with 15 carp at an average of 4lb each. If I could add an extra couple inthe last hour or a few bigger fish, it would push my weight up to 70 or 80lb which I thought would be there or there abouts.

With no more signs in the edge and only small fish bites on bread, I decided to try and fish paste across the far side at 16 metres. Although it wasn't easy, I dropped the paste in and before the float had time to settle properly it had disappeared. This was no small fish and after 5 minutes or so I finally slipped the net under a double figure fish. I then had three more smaller fish in the next three put ins as thoughts of a really big weight entered my head. Unfortunately I then had to change the rig as I got a wind know hear the hook and never go the rig right after that - how many times does that happen where you are catching really well and then swap the rig only for bites to dry up.

I then spent the rest of the match swapping sides down the edge catching a fish from each side until the last 20 minutes when it all went quiet. I actually ran out of green paste with 10 minutes to go so quickly added a load of water to some brown paste I'd brought with me but had dried out over two days, moulded a big wet blob around the hook and cupped it in. Once again the float shot under straight away as another double figure fish made a bid for freedom - although with 0.18 line and red hydro, it had little chance.

I finished the match with 16 carp but with Gareth admitting to 19, I though I was a couple of fish short. With half the section weighed in I was leading with 79-0-0 but then amazingly Gareth plonked 80-4-0 on the scales which meant that after two days fishing, we had both caught exactly the same weight ! Haisman then gave us both a fright with 70lb before I had to weigh McPikey in who had apparently gone to change his clothing having made the decision to ignore the use of a plummet to check the depth on his inside line and plummed up with himself !

Gareth and I both then nipped off to see the third section weigh in to see if Dotteddown had done enough to win . Unfortuantely for us both he'd weighed 101lb from the inner snake, and although Pete Bailey had shown how good he is on the snake by weighing a superb 175lb, Jamie's weight was enough to give him 2 points to add to the one he had on saturday and tied with me and Gareth but beat us both on weight.

Whilst I was gutted not to have won, we then headed back to the clubhouse where the raffle, a number of donations and some interesting fines boosted the charity donation to over £1,800 - a really superb effort.

So, once again I 'd had a superb weekend at Withy with a really good bunch of blokes and caught a few fish, what more could you want. I'm already looking forward to next year

Tomorrow sees me visit Spring Lake at Framfield for the first time for ages, so pop back here early next week to see how it fished.

Willinghurst - Wednesday 21st April 2010

2010-04-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

As I looked a the result of last wednesdays Willinghurst Open and the array of old has beens that fished it, I thought I'd have to try and take a day off work soon and go along to pick up some easy money !

So, with the weather forecast saying "Sunny and 19 degrees" for the Guildford area and with some time off owed to me by work, I booked in with Plummers for the Wednesday open. Having caught 70lb+ all on paste on the Sunday, I was confident of catching on paste again and whilst the cold nights might slow the fishing down initially, the high day time temperatures were encouraging the fish to satrt moving about looking for food.

Anyway, 10 of us turned up for the 9am draw (and no I don't know why Plummers insisted in getting there for 7am, although it did give us a chance to go for a wander around the lakes and also have a nice chat with bailiff Paul White who as you can see was in one of his more photogenic moods). After a lot of discussion, it was agreed that we would fish on Horseshoe Lake. Having walked round it a couple of times in the 2 hours we had there before the draw, I sorted out the pegging and as usual had my list of favourites I'd like to draw, which were:- Pegs 3,7,9,12,14 and 15A. Four of those pegs went to the first people to draw and when all but me had drawn, Peg 5 was left inthe bag. Whilst I cannot deny that it was an in form peg (as Robbie Taylor won from it on Sunday with 93lb of F1's and carp) the wind was blowing straight into it and it was bloody freezing - as Alan Harrington on Peg 6 would no doubt confirm as he had about 6 layers of clothing on.

Whilst Robbie caught 19 F1's and a few carp fishing long up in the water, that isn't really my speciality and I decided to start with a paste approach on the bottom at 12 metres, and at the base of the shelf at about 7 metres. I also set up an edge rig, where you can see, I had a set of rushes to fish to.

Bait wise I had a large baitbox of paste and also some luncheon meat and hemp to fish in the edge. And as I've always caught fish (including the F1's) on paste on the bottom, and the match was 6.5 hours long, I was confident of catching a few fish. On the whistle I fed a pot of micros and paste on the paste lines, which nearly always gets them fizzing straight away and a small pot of hemp and cubed meat in the edge. I then sat back to enjoy a days bagging, which went something like this.

Hour 1 - Not a sign on either of my paste lines, not even a bubble. A few anglers had one fish up in the water and Mick Seymour on Peg 2 on the point was catching a few small fish and F1's.

Hour 2 - Still no signs fishing out, tried down the edge with two cubes of luncheon meat and as I lowered the rig in , the float buried after a second or two and with 0.18 line and red hydro, I soon had my first fish of the day in the net............................a GUDGEON !

Hour 3 - Still nothing on the bottom and as the odd fish were being caught up in the water, I quickly set up an UITW rig, fishing small cubes of meat and pinging 2 or three cubes regularly, I was soon catching the odd fish or two, although they were RUDD !

Hour 4 - As above, alhough I did have one F1. Went for a walk to play with Ross's dog where we decided that the only chance we had was to catch a few lumps in the edge in the last 2 hours. Arriving back at my peg, I fed about 6 big pots of feed on the long line - just to try and get some sort of response, then discovered that it was very pleasant lying on the bank in the sun and promptly fell asleep !

Hour 5 - Woke up and after a quick look over all the lines with no indications at all, decided to concentrate on my edge peg. John Clifford had started to catch a few fish on Peg 9 and Mick Seymour was still catching a few F1's on Peg 2 but a few lumpy fish could soon propel me up the leader board. So, a bit of edge dwelling it was for me but as my first three put ins resulted in two Gudgeon and a Rudd, I was not that confident. At 3.20pm I decided to try a piece of paste down the edge and a tiny little bite which I thought was a gudgeon resulted in my first carp of the day which was as we like to say......a Barny Rubble (or over 10lb for those of you not aufait with cockney rhyming slang) !

Hour 6 - Twenty minutes later I had his twin brother and with only John Clifford catching, I thought I only needed two or three more fish to frame, although Pete Turnbull had just started to catch down the edge in my favourite Peg, Peg 12. Unfortunately, I lost a foul hooker that just swam off to the horizon before the hook pulled out and then it was back to the gudgeon catching as my match petered out.

Packing up quickly, I grabbed my camera and went round to watch the weigh in and take a snap or two of the winner (and the one of Paul White who kept pulling silly faces every time I pointed the camera towards him).

Here is John Clifford with his match winning net, ably assisted by Mick Seymour (and his white legs) who finished third.

Result

John Clifford...........Peg 9...............61-8-0

Pete Turnbull........Peg 12..............32-2-0

Mick Seymour......Peg 2................31-8-0

Ross Nursey.........Peg 7.................29-12-0

Dave Pearson.......Peg 5................25-8-0

Mick Keeper........Peg 1.................21-8-0

Alan Harrington....Peg 6................13-10-0

Steve Lucie..........Peg 15A...........12-0-0

Brian Wharton.....Peg 3...............DNW

Plummers............Peg 14.............Blanked - and gave me another pound.

The frustrating thing was that despite only really catching a couple of fish, I only needed one more to finish second. Oh yes and although I always enjoy my days out with the Willinghurst crew, fishing wise I felt I'd wasted a day off work which wont be too plentiful this Summer.

There is no fishing for me this weekend as I am off to London to support our Charity runners in the London Marathon. I will however try and get a guest blogger.

Next week I have three days at Witherington Farm for the Steve Ramsay Memorial weekend, which is one of my favourite weekends of the year, I can hardly wait !

Willinghurst - Old, Horseshoe and Pittance Lakes

2010-04-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

With no local matches around this week and Plummers also keen to fish a match somewhere I popped into Willinghurst last Sunday to sort out a little match for 10 or 12 of us this Sunday. However, news soon got round and when I turned up on Sunday morning, there were 36 names on the list !

With three lakes being used, it was probably a couple too many on each lake for a decent result and the one thing you needed more than usual was a decent draw. Pittance ws my favoured lake but by the time I came to draw there were only 2 pegs remaining and both were on Old Lake.

I gave Ross the chance to draw first with Pegs 1 and 14 in the bag but he declined and then Amy drew for me and picked Peg 1 from the bag. Although I thought Ross would still catch in Peg 14, I was much happier with Peg 1 as I drew it a number of times last summer and nearly always caught well from it.

As you can see, the peg in the corner has a lovely looking edge and whilst it is still a bit early in the year for bagging in the edge, I still expected to catch a few, especially with a 5pm finish.

With Dorking's Mark Goddard and Steve Gardener to my left I knew it would be tough to win the lake but luckily Mick The Bookie had drawn Peg 19 (probably the best peg in the South of England) so at least that was one flier that wouldn't frame !

Having fished Peg 1 a few times last summer, I set up one paste line to fish at the base of the shelf along the bank at 12 metres and another line at 10 o'clock in the open water. I then set up a rig to fish in the edge 11 metres along the bank, about 2 foot out in 2 foot of water and also a pellett waggler in case the fish wouldn't come in on the pole lines.

On the whistle I fed all my pole lines and by the time I'd finished, Jason Morgan on Peg 22 had already had 2 carp on the method ! For me the first half of the match was very slow, with one big crucian to show for my efforts, although to be fair although Reg and Mark Price on the opposite bank had 5 or 6 fish each, as did the Dorking Duo to my left, with a couple of hours left it was all to play for. I then had two quick fish on the waggler and lost one that swam off with my 0.16 hooklength.

With two hours to go, it was time to concentrate on my edge swim as although I had been trying it on and off during the match, I felt that now was the right time to concentrate my efforts there. I remixed my paste so it was much wetter and cupped in a large piece. The float cocked, the paste pulled the bristle down to leave half an inch visible, then suddnley disappeared as an 8lber made a bid for freedom - which with black hydro and an 0.18 rig was all a bit futile really and he soon ended up in the net. Next put in, the same thing happened and then again and again as I enjoyed a superb hours match fishing, putting 9 or 10 carp in the net. Just as I started to think that I could possibly win the match, the peg dried up and I only had one more fish in the last 50 minutes. This blank spell did coincide with two anglers standing behind me and whilst I'm not sure that it made any difference, I think I'll ask people to move on or at least crouch down if it happens again.

As the whistle went Steve G was just netting a 6lb F1, which turned out to be a very important fish. Packing up quicky, I grabbed the scales and went round to stasrt weighing in the other bank. Reg in the other corner (Peg 26) was leadin gall the way round until we reached Steve G who placed 74-8-0 on the scales. Mark Goddard's fish fell just short with 73-4-0 and then it was my turn to weigh. I knew I had less fish than the others but I did have a couple of "Barney Rubbles" so thought I might just sneak a lake win.

However, it was not to be and my 12 fish went 71-8-0 to finish just one fish behind.

Result

Robbie Taylor.............Horseshoe 5..........................93-12-0
Steve Gardener..........Old 5......................................74-8-0
Mark Goddard............Old 3......................................73-4-0
Dave Pearson..............Old 1......................................71-8-0
Donald Garnish...........Pittance 11...........................66-9-0
Gedge Cooper..............Horseshoe 6........................53-0-0
Tony Kent...................Pittance 16...........................52-15-0
Reg The Edge.............Old 26...................................51-8-0

So, how frustrating was that, just one fish in the last 50 minutes and I finished just 1 fish behind second place and picked up £20 instead of £130 ! Never mind,at least I caught a few fish and have managed to book Wednesday off so will be going to Willinghurst for the wednesday open.

Oh yes, nearly forgot............................I had Plummers pound again !

Bury Hill Main Lake - Part 2

2010-04-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read Part 1 yet then like any book, you need to read it before you read Part 2 as it will make more sense.

Arriving at Bury Hill on Sunday morning I actually felt sorry for the other anglers in the Medway Trotters match that I'd kindly been invited to fish as with my recently purchased Marukyu Nori pelletts, which some anglers have had to stop using on Carp venues where bream are also stocked as the bream keep getting to the bait first, I was going to empty the lake and even made sure I had two keepnets with me !

With 15 anglers fishing we were allocated pegs 1-19 on the Front bank which was a bit frustrating as nobody came to fish pegs 20-26 (the other pegs on the front bank) all day so we could have had a few more pegs and given everyone a bit more room. Still, you can't moan at £10.50 a peg can you !!!

Fortunately the fish had spread out over the lake recently so I didn't really mind where I drew but would have fancied either end peg or just one with a bit of room. As it turned out, of the 15 anglers fishing, I only knew 5 of them and we ended up with Jonny Watt on Peg 2, me on Peg 3, Hathers on Peg 4 and Squeeky on Peg 6 !

Historically Peg 3 has been a decent peg but with Hathers to my right on Peg 4, I could have done with a bit more room as due to the angle of the platforms, when he cast out his feeder it was right in front of me. Nevertheless, I didn't intend to fish the feeder anyway, settling for a pole line at 14.5 metres and a waggler line at about 22 metres. Both lines were to be fed with my Marukyu Nori pellets, 3mm on the pole line and 6mm's on the waggler line. Although I was still confident of catching, I only put one keepnet in at the start.

The majority of the field started on the feeder and had the odd fish or two whilst I tried both the pole and waggler and remained biteless. Jonny Watt had a couple of fish on the feeder as did the chap on Peg 1 but the angler really catching was Club Secretary Steve Peters on Peg 11 who was fishing the pole and seemed to be catching very well on pellett. Returning from my first walk, Hathers had just tried his pole line and caught two decent skimmers and continued to catch on and off for the rest of the match. Jonny Watt seemed to be stuck on 7 skimmers and couldn't catch on the pole whilst the chap on Peg 1 had a carp of about 13lb by the bushes. My match never really got started and I finished up with 3 bream on the pole for a disappointing 7-15-0 and probably last place in the match - even being beaten by Spindle !

I went along the bank to take some pictures but unfortunately after taking this picture of Steve Peters the battery ran out !

Result

Glen Holman...............Peg 15....................40-12-0
Mark Hathway...........Peg 4......................33-9-0
Don't Know his Name...Peg 1...................32-7-0
Steve Peters...............Peg 11....................31-4-0

So, yet another disappointing match for me on a venue that I really like, but thanks to The Medway Trotters for letting me join them for the day.

Sunday sees me back at Willinghurst for a match on Pittance and Old Lake so hopefully I will catch a few fish.

Bury Hill Lake - Main Lake

2010-04-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I get a match that for some reason excites me more than usual. It could be a venue I really like or just something a bit different from my usual run of the mill match carp fishing.

Sunday was one of those matches as Hathers had kindly invited me to fish with his mates in the Medway Trotters match on the Main Lake at Bury Hill Fisheries. Now, there are a number of reasons I like Bury Hill, the first is that on match days, my old mate and former match fishing star Kenny Collings works there and it is always a pleasure to see him and get some abuse. The second is that it is one of the most picturesque fisheries I know and the third is that it makes a change to be fishing for bream every now and then rather than carp.

Although , having said that, there are probably 3 carp pegs out of the 50 pegs usually used on matches and in the last 3 matches I have drawn 2 of them. The first was when I drew peg 1 on the Front Bank - pictured above. It doesn't look very fishy does it ?

Anyway I had a glorious days fishing, catching out in front at 12 metres and down by the bushes with most fish falling to either single or double expander. I think I won the match with 2 carp (for 17lb), about 35lb of tench to 5lb and some skimmers for a total of 80lb. And whilst I was under no illusions that it was a very very good peg, it was nice to beat the likes of Steve Gardener, Terry Harrison and Geoff Vallence etc etc.

The other time I drew Peg 26 by the club house (another featureless peg as you can see) and came 4th with about 40lb, which included a small bonus carp of 23-12-0 on a large piece of paste and gave me a few scary moments as it spent the first 10 minutes of the fight under the boathouse !

As I write this, it is Saturday morning, so pop back sometime on Monday to see how I got on. Hopefully I can report on how I drew a peg with a bit of room, fished the pole all day and won the match with 70lb of bream and tench...............but dont hold your breath !

Bank Holiday Monday

2010-04-06T10:55:00.001-07:00

With no fishing for me on Bank Holiday Monday and still full of Man Flu, Mrs Pikey and I took a little drive in the country to Willinghurst for an afternoon cup of tea.

Delbert, Gary Mustoe and Mick Seymour were fishing John's Lake and Delbert had this fine net of skimmers and assorted silvers for 29lb, and Mrs Pikey also took a couple of Wildlife pictures. Oh yes, there's one of Haydon from the previous week as well.

Willinghurst - Saturday 3rd April 2010

2010-04-03T13:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's been a while but due to the weather, a lack of suitable matches and transport and a distinct lack of enthusiasm, I didn't do any fishing last week and my only fishing related trip was with Mrs Pikey to see the weigh in on the Molesey League, where incidentally Mick Keeper won with 81lb from Peg 14 on Horseshoe Lake - and here is a picture of part of his catch as evidence !

With an Easter Sunday family dinner arranged at my parents house, and with Plummers back from his emigration to Cumbria (mainly cos he couldn't understand what people said to him after a match and he was already bored with catching 383 roach for 3-10-0) , we couldn't get in on Terry Molloy's two day festival at Sumner's Pond so booked in to a saturday match at Willinghurst on Pittance. I didn't expect there to be many people fishing but me and Plummers both like Pittance and a hopefully we'd catch a few fish now the weather has warmed a little.

However, when I woke at 3am still full of flu and with the rain battering against the windows, I wasn't convinced it was such a good idea after all and must admit I was tempted to text Plummers and tell him I wasn't going. Plummers duly arrived in the middle of the night as always - no I don't know why we need to get to the fishery 90 minutes before the draw but I don't actually mind as I'm always up early on match days. Driving through the country lanes on the way to Willinghurst it was still raining hard and you could tell by the amount of water lying on the roads that we'd had a fair amount over night as well, which didn't bode well for the fishing as the one thing that Willinghurst fish don't like is heavy rain and extra water in the lakes.

As expected the match attendees were more quality than quantity with only Me, Plummers, Ian Summers, Reg The Edge and T Bag fishing. With only 5 of us fishing and 18 pegs on the lake I suggested that rather than spend time discussing which pegs we should put in, we could make it a rover and draw numbers 1-5 with the angler drawing 1 choosing his peg first. Everyone agreed and when the others had drawn their numbers I was left with 2nd choice of Peg and with Ian Summers choosing the in form Peg 16, I decided to fish Peg 5 which I managed to mess up a couple of weeks ago. The peg selection was finished by Plummers fishing Peg 10, T Bag on Peg 12 and Reg choosing the unrated Peg 18.

Fortunately by the time we reached Pittance Lake, the rain had stopped and I was more than happy to see that me and Reg had the wind off our backs so if the rain did return then at least I could get my brolly up. In the last 3 or 4 matches on Pittance, I would think that 95% of the fish weighed in had been caught in the edge (or within a couple of feet of the bank) so my main line of attack would be 11 metres to my left, about three foot out from some rushes in about 2.5 foot of water, and with another edge line to my right (where you don't often seem to catch). My two other lines were at 12.5 metres at 10 O'clock and 8 metres straight out in front.

Baitwise I'd decided to fish corn soaked in some of the new Marukyu liquid additative in the edge and paste on the other lines, feeding some of the Marukyu 1mm pelletts. Although I intended to fish paste, I had ground down the mix very fine so that I could mould pieces the size of a 12mm pellett around the hook and hopefully catch a few bream as well as carp - my normal paste mixes are too granular and you can't put small pieces on the hook as they don't stay on, although to be fair, with the size pieces I use in the summer, that isn't usually a problem !

Oh yes, I nearly forgot I found some paste in my bait bag the other week when I was cleaning it out....do you think it will be ok to use ?

Anyway, I kicked off the match by feeding about 20 grain sof sweetcorn in both edge pegs and a small cup of 1mm pelletts on both paste lines. As expected the match started slowly for everyone although I did hear the "This ones a whale" call from Plummers after about 20 minutes. This doesn't worry me anymore as he now says it everytime he catches a fish over 4lb !

My first bite came on the 8 metre line after about 30 minutes and resulted in a skimmer of about 2lb. I then had a carp of about 6lb, another bream and a 5lb carp by switching between the two paste lines but no signs as yet in the edge. After 2 hours I went for a wander and the scoreboard read something like this:-

Reg - 6 Carp all on corn in the edge.

Ian Summers - 1 Carp in the edge, lots of moaning.

T Bag - 3 carp on the lead with.........................a T Bag.

Plummers - 2 carp, one in the edge.

Me - 2 carp and two skimmers all on paste.

Back at my peg, things remained quiet with still no signs down the edge and only the occasional indication on the paste lines until I struck at a bite and immediately rued the choice of white hydro as my elastic as an unseen fish decided to lead me on a tour of the lake. It's ok having pull bungs but there is little you can do if the fish just keeps swimming and wont come back ! Anyway, after what seemed like an age, I finally netted a "Barney Rubble" and although Reg now had 8 carp, I though if I could catch a few more lumps, I might just nick the £60 on offer to the winner. Another 6lb fish followed soon after before the wind changed direction, the tow picked up considerably and made paste fishing out in front very difficult si I decided that as I'd so far been biteless on corn in the edge I'd try paste but had an attack of lazyitiss and rather than setting up a new rig, just slid the float down the line (leaving far too much line between the pole tip and the float) and just guessed the depth. I didn't really want to shorten the line yet as if the wind dropped I wanted to go back out on my long line.

I just about managed to get the paste in the swim without the line tangling around the float and although the float was difficult to spot in the waves, I suddenly noticed it move slightly and using my cat like reflexes, lifted the pole. This then obviously angered the unseen fish as it then pulled more white hydro out than I have ever seen in my life as I hung on, praying that nothing would break. After about 10 minutes Plummers was obviously bored in his own peg and came round to give me some really useful advice...........things like "Why don't you just pull it really hard and see if it comes in" but with the elastic looking like about a number 3 latex and with the tension of of guitar string, this so far unseen fish really didn't want to come in.

After another 10 minutes or so of Plummers useful advice and much pratting about, I finally managed to net the fish - and this one was a whale, which we estimated at about 16lb, a nice little bonus. With only 50 minutes remaining, I decided to concentrate on the edge peg and shortened off the paste rig so I could fish it properly and ten minutes later had another fish of about 8lb. With only twenty minutes remaining , it was clear that I was only fishing for carp so switched over the top from white to purple hydro so if I hooked anymore fish at least I'd have them in the net quickly.

I was grateful for the change as my next fish of about 6lb was foulhooked in the arm and on white hydro I'd have spent an age getting it in. With just 5 minutes remaining I was hoping for one more fish and with a minute to go, my prayers were answered as I finished the day with my 8th carp. I knew Reg had 9 carp but I was sure they wouldn't be as big as mine and I had 4lb of bream as well so I was fairly confident of winning.

Result

Dave Pearson......Peg 5.........66-4-0

Reg The Edge......Peg 18.......44-0-0

T Bag..................Peg 12.......7 Carp and a gudgeon DNW.

Plummers..........Peg 10.......2 carp and one bream DNW.

Ian Summers.....Peg 16......1 Carp, moaned a lot, packed up early !

So, all in all a most enjoyable day, the weather turned out ok and I caught on paste, and now had an extra £60 in the old "Sky Rocket" (oh yes and Plummers £1) so, what more could I want ?

I don't know what is happening match wise for the next week or two as Plummers is back in Cumbria and I 'm not sure that I can find anyone to fish with for a week or so - but don't panic, if I can't get out on the bank, I'll try and find some substitute bloggers !

Spring Grove Ponds - Xmas Match !

2010-03-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, you did read that right as last Sunday saw us fishing the rearranged Leatherhead DAS Xmas match, and I have to say that I'm all for having Xmas matches in March as the weather was superb !

Regular readers will know that the favoured pegs to draw on the two lakes just 5 minutes walk from my house are 1,3,4,5,7 and 12 on the favoured top lake and pegs 13 and 18 on the bottom lake. With 12 pegs on the Top lake and only 4 on the bottom lake plus the fact that I'd drawn the bottom lake in the last two matches, the chances are that I would find myself on my favoured top lake where the bigger carp just LOVE paste wouldn't they ? Well I left it late to draw and with only 4 pegs left in the bag, and with 4 or 5 still waiting for me, I rummaged around in the bag for a bit before finally emerging with................................Peg 14 ! The same peg number I had last match on the bottom lake, although it had been pegged a little further round.

I know there are far more serious things in life to worry about than the pegs we draw in matches but I love the top lake with it's bigger carp which are just the right size for my paste approach and with this being the third match in a row I had drawn the bottom pond, I wasn't a happy bunny.

With Hathers drawing Peg 18 on the same lake, I was sure he would win the lake as not only has it been a consistent peg in the last few matches but he is also a very good "Silvers" angler and the lake with it's stocking of small carp, crucians, Goldfish and roach suited him down to the ground.

I'd had little time to sort my gear and bait out prior to the match and was relying heavily on a paste attack and a peg on the top lake but had also prepared a few expanders just in case. The biggest mistake I did make was getting any micro pelletts to feed as I always like to feed them on the bottom lake when fishing a small expander.

Having fed a couple of "Small fish" long lines at 14 metres, I dropped a piece of paste against the rushes to my left and the float disappeared within seconds as I had an early 2lb carp. Things were looking up but unfortunately didn't last as although I had fish in my edge peg, they were small and were just knocking the paste about and not taking it properly. I switched to the long lines and found that by fishing corn instead of expander, I could catch small carp instead of the smaller crucians but I still wasn't catching fast enough. As I wasn't really taking the match too seriously I went for my first walk after 90 minutes to find that Haydon Woods on Peg 12 and Pete Turnbull on Peg 5 were both catching well and Nick Kenward in the corner Peg 3 had caught a few bigger carp.

Back at my peg and despite feeding the long lines before I left, I now had to wait ages for a bite and was clearly going nowhere, so decided to sit it out for bigger carp fishing paste. Walk number 2 took me round the whole of the top lake, including Nick Kenwards peg where he told me he'd had a few on paste so I stopped to watch for a few minutes. After seeing him lift the rig complete with paste attached out of the water 3 times with the paste still in place I'd seen enough !

I finished the match with a late flurry when a few fish turned up on my inside line to the right and my catch pulled the needle round to 17-14-0 which was enough for 7th place and although I think I could have finished 5th, I wouldn't have got near Hathers who finished 4th overall with 33lb.

Result

Haydon Woods........Peg 12.............62lb

Peter Turnbull........Peg 5...............49lb

Nick Kenward.........Peg 3...............43lb

The good news was that being the Xmas match everyone got a prize and as per usual I managed to select my usual jar of pickled onions from the array of prizes on offer !

Before I go, I just need to add the following picture of Delbert who won the recent match on Willinghurst Top Lake with 5 carp for 25lb from Peg 2 but due to lack of time, I didn't have time to complete a blog.

Willinghurst and Sumners Pond

2010-03-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

My apologies again for the lack of blogging recently but due to work commitments, I 've not had a lot of spare time. Anyway it's good news for regular readers as it's a "Bog Off" week (Buy one get one free) as I cover our first match for a while at Willinghurst and one of Terry Molloy's matches on Sumners Ponds match lake.

I haven't fished at Willinghurst since before Christmas and was really looking forward to returning. A few of the other regulars said they were interested so I decided to run a match and make it a Rover where we all drew a number and whoever drew Number 1 chose his peg first followed by 2,3,4 etc etc. With the weather forecast saying heavy rain and high winds, I thought this would be the ideal format for a match as not only couldn't people moan about the pegging but it also meant that you could tuck yourself away out of the wind if you wanted to.

Sunday morning arrived, along with the promised rain and wind, as well as 20 brave souls. I'd fished Pittance Lake on Thursday with Plummers and although nobody had fished the venue recently I was sure that Pittance would produce some decent weights and no matter what number I drew I was looking to fish on that lake.

I did enjoy the draw as everyone watched everyone else draw and the craic was superb. I came to draw with 3 numbers still in the bag and let Mick The Bookie draw me Number 2. I then began to panic as I really didn't know which peg to choose ! Wicket had drawn number 1 and chose Peg 26 on Old Lake so I now had only 100 other pegs to choose from, and having spent all week saying that I was just going to pick a peg with the wind behind me I let the pressure of picking a peg get to me and blurted out Pittance 5 (where Plummers had caught 6 carp and 2 chub on Thursday). I knew that the wind would be horrendous on that bank and still don't know why I chose it !

Arriving at Pittance my initial thoughts were confirmed as the wind was howling across the lake into the peg of the only idiot to pick a peg over that side.....................ME ! On the other bank with the wind off their backs were Bubs, Gedge Cooper and Plummers - 3 of the Willinghurst characters I love to fish with and if nothing else we'd have a laugh.

As I'd pinched Plummers favourite peg, he wasn't sure where to go as he'd drawn Number 18 so I told him that Peg 16 on Pittance was a decent edge peg and the wind would be favourable there as well. As I type this, I still can't believe that I didn't pick it ! Although the rain eased off a bit throughout the day, I can't remember a days fishing where I had been so cold and after a couple of hours with only 4 gudgeon and 3 roach in the net I had to go for a walk as I was so cold.

Reaching Plummers, despite moaning about how cold his hands were, he already had 6 carp and with the latter stages of the match still to come, I expected him to catch a few more. Back at my peg I had another couple of roach before nicking a couple of carp but just as I thought I was going to empty it, the carp disappeared and I was back to catching the odd roach until a couple of Reggies put in an appearance. My next walk was with just over an hour to go and by this time Plummers was admitting to 10 carp but by now was struggling to get bait on the hook as his hands were so cold. I returned to my peg for the final hour to plunder one chub form the peg and my final wieght put me tied 3rd on the lake with 11-9-0 tied with Gedge, 9lb behind Bubs but a long long way behind Plummers whose 14 carp and a 4lb tench went 66lb for a convincing win.

Result

Tony Plumbridge........Pittance 16..............66-2-0
Steve Collins...............Cherrytree...............43-0-0
Donald Garnish...........Old 1........................29-10-0
Terry Harrison...........Oaktree 3 ..............26-0-0
Bubs.............................Pittance 10..............20-0-0
Steve Gardner...........Old 5........................Blanked !

The most entertaining part of the day on Old Lake was when Steve G was fishing opposite Mick the Bookie and as Mick kept casting over half way, Steve waited until he wasn't watching and cast over his line. Mick then played the England international for quite a while without realising what was going on !

The following weekend I had a cunning plan. I booked in on Terry Molloy's match on Sumners Match lake and the plan was that if I didn't draw in a carpy area I was going to go all out to win the silvers pool and at least have a days fishing with plenty of roach bites. So, on Thursday afternoon I had to go to the dentist in Sutton so ordered two pints of Steve Sanders finest "shells" and picked them up on the way there.

With Part one of the plan successfully complete, Part two consisted of making up a few silvers rigs on the friday evening and theses consisted of a .6 Drennan Lake float on 0.10 line with T213 hook on a .08 hooklength.

Unfortunately after a hearty breakfast in the cabin we assembled at the lake to hear that nobody else wanted a silvers pool so they had scrapped it ! The weather was forecast to be mild at 9 degrees and with 10 MPH winds but as the start time approached, the wins was getting stronger and stronger making fishing the long pole almost impossible. I'd drawn Peg 5 in the open water between the first and second island which can be a good area, depending where the carp are on the day.

I set up a rod to fish the bomb as although I think it is the most boring form of fishing possible, it unfortunately has to be done sometimes in order to be in with the chance of a pick up. I also set up a rig to fish at 10 metres into the wind for carp but with no silvers pool and the wind making pole fishing hard, I didn't even bother to get out my superbly tied roach rigs.

Half way through the match I wasn't too far behind the leaders as a few people had three or four carp and I had two carp for about 9lb on the lead. Another hour passed and as my tip remained motionless whilst others picked up carp, I decided to cal it a day and get out a roach rig just to see if I could catch a few and to hopefully see the float go under a few times. With the wind being so strong I couldn't fish past 5 meters and even then had to feed with a catapult as I could only throw casters about 3 metres by hand. To cut a long story short I had a few roach, then a skimmer of about 2lb and although I couldn't catch any of it's mates I continued to catch a few roach until the end of the match - although I did have another biteless 20 minutes on the tip with an hour to go.

My total weight was 19-2-0 which probably only beat a few of the weighing anglers but at least I had a few bites. However, at least my left over bait wasn't wasted as I soon had a couple of geese feeding well on my casters and corn.

It was touch and go whether I was colder last week or this and I really can't wait for the warm weather to arive, surely it can't be too much longer can it ?

At the weigh in it looked as though it could be tight with Plummers, Terry Molloy, Terry Maddox, Pete Franklin and Mick the Bookie (no I didn't believe it either) all owning up to 7 carp.
Result (I haven't got the sheet but it went something like this)

Terry Molly.........Peg 7..................52-0-0
Pete Franklin......Peg 18................42-0-0
Plummers............Peg 2..................34-0-0
Bob Clampitt.......Peg 11................33-0-0

So, all in all, not a brilliant two weeks fishing, mainly due to the weather again but hopefully it will start to pick up soon and I'll start to catch a few more fish.

This picture is a rarity as it shows match winner Terry Molloy NOT Talking, he was only two pegs to my right but luckily I used the Malc Fowler idea of sticking a piece of artificial corn in my left ear to muffle most of his rabbiting !

Sumners Ponds - Match Lake

2010-02-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

To be honest, I've not been that excited about my fishing lately and if I didn't enjoy the match fishing craic so much then I probably wouldn't have gone at all recently. The weather has been cold and wet most weekends and due to being very busy at work I've not really had to prepare for matches properly and using the age old motto, "Fail to Prepare - Prepare to Fail" and when you are fishing against the likes of Steve Gardener, Terry Harrison etc, that's exactly what has been happening as I've just been throwing away £35 a week on match entries and bait.

Anyway, this week I deceided to fish on Saturday and earn a few Valentines Day brownie points on Sunday so booked in to Terry Molloy's match on the match lake at Sumners Pond. When Plummers rang for a chat on Thursday, he said that because all the carp seem to be shoaled up in certain areas, Terry had decided to have a Silverfish pool as well so if you drew away from the carp you still had something to fish for. So, with me stuck at work and the nearest decent casters being in Sutton some 10 miles away, I rang my mate Don who I knew would be visiting the tackle shop on Friday and he agreed to pick me up a pint of Steve Sander's finest shells.

Saturday morning arrived, as did Plummers at what still seemed like the middle of the night (but was infact 6.30am) and within 45 minutes we were eating a most enjoyable breakfast in the Sumners Pond chalet. With 17 anglers fishing the pegs I fancied were 2,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12 and 17 but unfortunately drew Peg 14 in the open water on the right hand bank between teh first and second islands. I decided to fish for carp and set up a lead to fish bread / Corn / pellett and the pole at 13 metres fishing corn. Despite having a liner when I chucked out before the match to make sure that Ben at the next peg and I weren't casting too close to each other, I fished the first hour on the lead switching baits about but never had a sign of a bite or liner. As the anglers on the other bank were catching the odd carp - including Plummers who'd had 4 already, I thought I might as well get out a roach rig and at least get a few bites.

It was at this point that I shouted across to Don that I'd be round for my casters only to hear that he'd forgotten to pick them up from the tackle shop ! So, that was the end of my silvers fishing before it had even started ! I took this picture of Don after the match still trying to remember what he was supposed to pick up at the tackle shop !

Anyway, I spent another biteless hour on the long pole and lead before deciding that I needed a walk to warm up. On reaching Plummers peg I related my casterless tale of woe and with 4 carp already in the net he had already decided not to bother with a silvers line so very kindly donated his casters to me - Thanks mate. On the way back to my peg the only angler I saw fishing for silvers was Tony Yianni and although I was a few hours behind him, I still thought I could catch him.

Back at my peg I mixed Plummers casters with some hemp and attached a silvers rig 4x16 Drennan Lake float on 0.10 line with a T213 hook on an 0.8 G Line hooklength to the end of the Number 4 Slip elastic and plumbed up at 5 metres. The water here was probably 3 foot deep which I hoped would be deep enough for the roach to stay and feel comforatble in as I really didn't want to fish any further out as the wind was quite strong and I really didn't want to fish any further out.

I started loose feeding some hemp and a few casters continuously and despite a very slow start, I soon began picking up some decent roach then a nice chub of about a pound and a half. By constantly changing the depth and keep varying the catching area I managed to keep roach coming until the last 45 minutes when the peg just seemed to die and I wondered if infact a carp or two had moved in to the peg but the match ended before I could find out.

Jason Morgan had won the battle of the far bank carpers with 7 carp for 39lb, followed by Terry Maddox (pictured right) with 35lb and then Don Garnish with 32lb (incidentally they were either side of Terry Molloy who only had 2 carp) but it wasn't the carp catchers I was interested in but Tony Yianni whose net of silvers was suprisingly recorded as 9-3-0 with most of his catch being small "maggot roach".

As the scales arrived at my peg and I pulled my net out, I knew I'd done enough to pick up the £40 silvers prize as the digital scales settled on 12-1-0 and I just wished I'd fished for silvers from the start.

So, what started off as a struggle finished up as a most enjoyable few hours silvers fishing although by the time we packed up I could hardly write on the weigh sheet as I was so cold.

Next weeks match will depend on the midweek weather as it could either be a Leatherhead DAS club match on the River Mole, a Molloy Match at Sumners on the Saturday or if the river is flooded then the club match might be moved to the ponds round the corner from my house.

We'll just have to see what the weather throws at us this week.

River Mole Mickleham

2010-02-06T12:31:00.000-08:00

With Plummers away this weekend and no other interesting matches about, I decided to fish the Leatherhead DAS club match. Depending on teh weather in the preceeding 7 days, this would either be on the River Mole at Mickleham (5 minutes in the car from my house) or if it rained and the river was unfishable, on the club ponds (5 minutes walk from my house).

I would actually have preferred the ponds option but despite a drop of the wet stuff on Thursday night, the river was only up about a foot on Saturday morning and dropping, with a decent colour.

Arriving at the draw on Sunday morning, I expected to find about 12 of us fishing but was advised by Competition Secretary Pete Turnbull that there were infact 28 and he had to quickly add some pegs on the Sunmead stretch below ours in order to fit in enough decent pegs.

A quick look at the river revealed that it had dropped about 6 inches from the day before and I was quite looking forward to it.

I just knew that having walked the Leatherhead stretch the previous day, I was guaranteed to draw the Sunmead strtch and that was exactly what happened as "Sunmead 8" stuck to my grubby little hand. The peg is the one almost next to Thorneycroft Bridge and is apparently a flier for roach - although River Mole ace Mark Lindsey did blank from it a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, having negotiated the 30 yard walk to my peg from where Mrs Pikey dropped me off, it appeared to be an out and out stick float peg and I therefore set up my 12 foot Norboron rod, Abu 501 reel and 5x4 Steve Gardener stick float. I did also set up a pole but wihtt he river flowing quite hard, I really didn't expect to use it.

Baitwise I had 2 pints of KC Angling's best casters, a big bag of hemp from Fetcham pet shop and a tin of the Jolly Green Giants finest corn. Most people wouldn't consider corn as a river bait but I would think about 90% of my River Mole chub have been taken on corn over the past three years or so.

The peg looked really nice when I first arrived but seemed to be getting worse as the starting whistle approached as the river was dropping and my peg was beginning to boil. After 2 hours my optimism appeared to be unfounded as my keepnet was filled with 2 roach one dace and a minnow ! A quick walk up to see Hayden Woods (2 pegs but about 400 yards above me) revealed that I wasn't winning the match as he had already had about 7 chub.

Returning to my peg, I continued to catch the odd roach and then struck into a bigger fish which I could tell wasn't a chub but wasn't sure what it was until it came up on the surface and I put my landing under a 2-8-0 perch. The odd dace and roach followed but it was clear that the peg wasn't going to improve and I decided to go for a walk to get some pictures for the blog. As I stood on the bridge Spindle turned up in his car and as I moaned about the lack of roach he said he'd seen 4 cormorants in residence near the bridge for the past two weeks. Having received that info it would explain the lack of roach and dace in the peg and after another fishless half hour I packed up half an hour early and weighed in the grand total of 4-6-0.

As we weighed the rest of the section Bryan Hawkins weighed one big chub and a few small roach and dace for 5-6-0 to win the section as Hayden (pictured below) took second place with 8 chub for 14-8-0.

Mark Lindsey drew "The Door Swim" up the tunnel and showed what a good river angler he is as his 5 proper chub, one small one and a sanitary towel went 14-12-0 and gave him a narrow victory on a day when the river didn't fish well despite looking half decent.

Despite my result, I enjoyed my day and am looking forward to fishing a few more river matches in the coming weeks.

Sumners Match Lake - Saturday 30th January 2010

2010-01-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

One thing I do love about the "On Line fishing community" is that people are always happy to pass on any fishing tips or tackle recommendations. One such example happened recently on one of my regular Tuesday night calls from Malcolm Fowler.

Malc had read my comments about being drawn next to a very loud Terry Molloy last week and came up with the following suggestion that could help many match anglers up and down the country. If you draw next to a "Molloy" then you can make use of the Korum artificial corn (pictured left) and reduce the amount of noise by sticking one in each ear or just the side nearest to the source of noise.

Anyway, with nothing planned for Sunday this week, I decided to swap my fishing day for Saturday and fish Terry Molloy's match on the Sumners Pond match (Carp) lake. The weather had been fairly mild during the week and as the carp started to have a bit of a chew last saturday following a long spell of inactivity, I was really looking forward to it. That was until I saw that the weather for Friday night was forecast as Minus 4 for the Horsham area and I wasn't convinced that it wouldn't be frozen over again.

My plan of attack was to fish corn on the pole and try fishing a bit of Mossella Magic bread on the lead as with the water becoming clearer, I thought that might be my trump card. Ialso popped into KC Angling on the way back from the dentist on Friday afternoon and picked up a pint of their finest casters, just in case the lake was frozen completely and it became a silvers match.

Saturday morning soon arrived and as usual Plummers picked me up in the middle of the night as he never sleeps and as we arrived at Sumners about an hour earlier than we needed to be we had a quick drive up to the match lake to see if it was frozen. Unfortunately it was probably the worst possible conditions, with about two thirds of it being frozen which meant that it would still be a carp match but some would be fishing through the ice.

With 15 anglers fishing it was left to Steve Gardener to peg the lake and whilst I would have just spread all the anglers out so they had a bit of room, Steve tried to squash everyone into the ice free bits. The one thing I hate about Match Fishing is when anglers are pegged tightly and end up fishing the same peg and they all start moaning about who is casting where so I just prayed that at the draw I'd pick a peg with a bit of room. With pegs 1-12 on the left had bank and 13-15 on the other, the only peg I didn't want was Peg 6 in the bay as the pegs either side of it are at an angle and if they cast out straight in front of themselves then your peg has about 2 yards of water to cast to on the lead line.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I started on theh pole with corn and had a 6lb carp fairly early on then nothng, I chicked out the lead and Terry Maddox said he thought I was in front of him, so I reeled in and chucked it slightly to the left and Steve Gardener said I was in front of him......aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh ! With nothing more showing on the pole line with corn I fed a few casters and started to catch a few roach whilst Terry caught on the lead and Steve G caught on the pole. The only good news was that my 9-10-0 beat Plummers (seen above with most of his catch).

I've now managed to lose the results sheet but I know it went something like this.

Jamie Grainger...............37-8-0
Steve Gardener..............37-6-0
Terry Maddox................34-6-0

So that was it, another week where I swapped my fishing day and wished I hadn't ! Not too sure what I'm doing next week but I 'll certainly be on a match somewhere so pop back early next week to see where I ended up.

Oh yes, the picture is of match winner Jamie, who pipped God by just 2 ounces.

Sumners Pond - Match Lake / Ribbon Lake

2010-01-17T13:27:00.000-08:00

It's two for the price of one this week as due to work commitments, I've really not had time to blog over the past week or so - You therefore have a "Buy one - Get one free offer this week with two reports !

If you read my last offering you will have noticed that my little wander along the River Mole to see the weigh in had recharged my river fishing batteries and I couldn't wait to get back there this week for the Leatherhead DAS V Dorking V Warlingham inter club match on the Dorking stretch of the River Mole. Well unfortunately whilst it was nice to have a few milder days, this did cause a little bit of a problem with the river level (as you can see from the picture Mrs Pikey took this morning).

Anyway, I had received a call from Terry Molloy late in the week saying that he had a Silvers Match "organised" for the match lake at Sumners Pond on Sunday if I was interested. It wasn't until he'd put the phone down that I remembered that he fishes the Rushmoor League at Gold Valley so I could guess who would be running the Sumners match ! I never mind organising matches but Terry's matches are always a bit traumatic to run as he usually tells you that 12 people will be fishing and 17 turn up ! And that's exactly what happened on Sunday and we also had only one bank as the Guildford Mafia were having their Christmas Match on the other. However, as the lake was covered in about 3 inches of ice, we could put the pegs a bit closer together than usual and having pegged out the length, the main consideration was to try and draw a peg that had been cut out the day before as it meant that you would only have to cut 1/4 inch of ice and the second consideration was to try and draw a peg between 1 and 9 as they were in the big bay where the majority of silvers seemed to have moved to.

Having organised the draw, I was left with Peg 11 which had Bubs one side and Brian Wharton the other, so at least I knew I wouldn't be last ! I wasn't sure if the peg had been fished the day before but let out a big cheer as I neared my peg half way along the second island to find that there was a lovely channel cut in the ice to about 10 metres. Although I could cut the channel out with my weedcutter attached to the end of my pole, I also wanted to fish a short line at about 6 metres so out came the ice breaker and I soon had a decent inside line to my left as well as a long line infront.

As the match started, it soon began clear that the majority of silvers were located in the deep bay in pegs 1-8 but my decision to fish caster instead of maggot or pinkie soon began to pay off as I started to catch some bigger roach. Suprisingly I could only catch on the shorter line - maybe because I hadn't thrown the ice breaker on the long line and stirred up the bottom like I had closer in. Anyway, for the first time for a long while, the sun shone (I even took my fleece and jumper off) and everyone seemed to be catching a fish or two.

On the whistle I grabbed the scales and made my way up to Peg one to start the weigh in. From the weights, you could see that the bay was the place to be as the Top six weights went like this:-

Result

Ben Emery..............Peg 2.............9-7-0
Tony Yianni............Peg 7.............7-13-0
Mick Keeper...........Peg 4.............6-14-0
Don Garnish...........Peg 5.............6-13-0
Dave Pearson.........Peg 11...........6-11-0
Jason.......................Peg 8.............5-8-0

As match organiser for the day I was gutted that I decided to pay just the Top 4 and no sections as I finished 5th and would have won the second section, although at least I took a pound off Plummers as once again he discovered that tangerine sized bits of paste are useless for roach fishing in Winter !

Last Sunday looked half decent weather wise so it was off to Sumners Pond again but this time on the Ribbon Lake which is full of Skimmers, roach, little crucians, smallish tench (although there is the odd bigger one to keep you on your toes), small chub and the odd rudd.

Having only fished the lake a few times, I don't think anyone really knows which areas you want to draw and whilst I wasn't really worried about which peg I drew, the were a couple of people that I'd rather not have drawn next to, and they were....................

Steve Gardener - Cos he always gives me a good beating on silvers matches.
Terry Molloy - Cos he usually gives me a good beating AND ear ache on all matches.
Ben Emery - Or Windy Ben as he is known !
John Holt - A very nice man, but he is from up North and I can never understand anything he says.
Sam Sim (I think) - A young lady I've not fished with before but (not wishing to sound sexist) nobody likes to be beaten by a girlie !

Anyway, into the draw bag went the hand and out came Peg 1, with Terry Molloy on Peg 2 (Luckily I had my headache tablets with me). The good thing was that with Plummers on Peg 3, we could park right behind our pegs and only had a very short walk. Tactics wise, I decided to fish to the island with caster, hoping to catch chub / roach and in the deeper water infront of me with pellett for the skimmers. To cut a long story short it fished quite hard, I had a few early roach and a bonus rudd and tench both of about half a pound but the rest of my catch consisted of mainly roach. Despite some good mickey tacking in the first couple of hours when I was catching and Terry wasn't, in the second half of the match he gave me a lesson in Skimmer fishing (I'm really crap at it) and walked the match with 17lb. I wasted an hour or more fishing for skimmers which I wasn't good enough to catch and when I switched back to fishing by the island with an hour to go I started to catch again.

Starting at Peg 13 and weighing back to me, the early weights were 4lbish then Mick Keeper weighed 5-8-0 and got all excited cos he beat Steve G (4-14-0) off the next peg ! Ben then took the lead with 6-2-0 until Kevin pipped him with 7-10-0, which included a 3lb tench.
I was more concerned about my pound with Plummers but when he weighed 3-11-0 I knew I was safe with my net finally settling the scales on 6-7-0.

Result

Terry Molloy...........Peg 2...............17-0-0
Kevin........................Peg 4................7-10-0
Dave Pearson.........Peg 1.................6-7-0
Ben Emery..............Peg 5................6-2-0
Mick Keeper...........Peg 7................5-8-0
Steve Gardener.....Peg 6................4-14-0

So once again, an enjoyable winters day with a few bites for everyone. Next weekend I am fishing at Sumners on the Match (Carp ) Lake and as it seems like the fish have woken up after the big freeze, I'm hoping to catch a carp or two.

River Mole - Mickleham

2010-01-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

With all the local lakes being frozen solid and the weather forecast being horrible for the weekend, I volunteered to go to Wildlife Aid on Sunday to help look after the wildlife on Sunday rather than fish.

However, when Hathers texted me on Friday night to check on the condition of the River Mole, I began to feel sorry that I hadn't put my name down for the Leatherhead DAS club match on the river, just 5 minutes away from home.

Sunday morning saw me arrive at Wildlife Aid and as the promised snow hadn't arrived and the conditions actually weren't too bad, more volunteers had turned up than expected and to be honest I wasn't really needed. All I ended up doing was feeding three parakeets, helping Karen (another volunteer) prepare dinner for the Hedgehogs and doing a bit of washing up. Incidentely, we have about 70 Hedgehogs at Wildlife Aid that we have to keep there until the spring as they are too small to be released at the moment and wouldn't survive hibernation. I have therefore started a little appeal to help get money to buy dog / cat food to feed them. If you feel that you want to help out then email me at Pikeyp@btinternet.com and I will give you my address details.

Anyway after a quick family visit to make sure my parents were ok with all this snow and ice, and a spot of lunch we decided to pop down the river to watch the weigh in. Whilst there were loads of cars in the car park, the majority of them belonged to the sledgers and skiers that were taking advantage of the snowy slopes of the Mole valley and only 9 of them belonged to anglers.

A quick walk along the bottom section of the Leathehead DAS water brought back memories of many a club match in the past when we used to get turnouts of 45 anglers and some brilliant days fishing. Ray Smee had drawn the "Bottom Pool" and with 5 chub in the net (two on bread and 3 on maggot) I thought he might have had enough to win. The only others I heard had beeen catching were Martin Cooper who also had 5 chub and Gary Rose who had drawn one of the best winter roach pegs and had caught Dace on and off for most of the match.

Having reached Hathers in "Roger's Swim" (yes, all the pegs have names), he had alledgedly caught one MINNOW but having seen no evidence of said fish, then I cannot confirm or deny this. We hung around long enough chating to enable him to pack up and help him carry his gear back to the car park before watching Ray Smee weigh in.

Unfortunately we missed Gary Rose weigh in a brilliant winning net of 13lb of mainly dace but managed to see Ray weigh in his 2nd place 12-8-0. Martin Cooper finished third when his 5 chub weighed slightly less than Ray's whilst Pete Turnbull also matched Hathers one minnow and the others had all left for an early bath.

After a quick post match chat in the car park, we all left hoping that the snow doesn't all melt quickly and make the river unfishable next sunday when the joint Leatherhead/Dorking river matches switch to the Dorking water and I for one am quite looking forward to it.

Furnace Small Lake - Sunday 3rd January 2010

2010-01-09T02:37:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Sorry about the lack of reports lately but with the weather being like it has since before Xmas, even as a hardened year round "Go fishing in all weathers" match angler I haven't really had the enthusiasm to go out and spend ages breaking ice for just a few bites.

Last Sunday was one exception where after what seemed like weeks with no matches, I booked in on a match being run by Gedge Cooper. Now I've known Gedge for probably 40 years, since I first started fishing the Surrey Division of the Angling Times Winter League and whilst he is probably one of the funniest of my fishing mates, I've never really thought of him as the Match Organising type. Anyway it turned out that he hadn't actually booked the lake, had no scales, pegs, draw numbers or weigh sheets ! His excuse was that he'd just arranged a little knock up between 4 or 5 mates and wasn't expecting it to turn into a "Proper" Match !

When Plummers picked me up on Sunday morning it actually felt quite mild (compared to what it had been) and arriving at Furnace Lake - having been mugged again by the "Little Thief" (2 breakfasts and a small bottle of drink for only £20.70 - What a bargain !) part of the lake wasn't even frozen. It was funny though to see that 4 "Bivvy Boys" had been night fishing on the lake, had obviously cast out at night then retreated to their bivvy beds, only to wake up in the morning to find that their pegs were frozen solid !

With 11 of us fishing we just spread the pegs out round the lake, avoiding the section where the night fishermen had been as they had apparently thrown in a bucket of GB each - just what you need when the temperature is minus 5 at night ! Plummers once again drew another ice free peg whilst I drew Peg 5 in the shaded far end of the lake where the ice was thickest.

To cut a long story short I was bloody freezing sat in the shade as it was actually a glorious sunny day and most of those in the sunshine had a few bites whilst me, Mick the Bookie and Bubbs sat in shady corner biteless and very very cold. After a couple of walks just to get my circualtion going I finally had my first bite, resulting in a 10 ounce skimmer. Two more followed at 20 minute intervals before I had another hour without a bite. With an hour to go I was just thinking about packing up when the float disappeared again and I lifted into something that felt like a bigger bream or tench. I shipped back slowly to the top 3 and with the fish under my feet, just started to lift slowly in an effort to coax the fish into the net. Unfortunately the fish stayed where it was on the bottom and as I lifted more elastic came out before the fish decided that it was a bit bored and would swim off under the ice. As there is not a lot you can do with a number 4 latex in an iced up swim, I just added a couple of sections and hung on for dear life, expecting something to break any minute - either the rig, elastic or pole !

Fortunately with the water being so cold, the so far unseen fish just plodded about and with a bit of patience, I finally had him in the net - A great big mirror carp that looked to be 12lb+. However, this was a "Silvers match" with carp only counting 1lb so I quickly unhooked it and slid it back in the water. Whilst it was frustrating that I would have finished second if it had counted, it wasn't as bad as my only other match on the lake a few weeks ago where carp didn't count at all and I had 5 for about 45lb !

Whilst I fished on right to the end, I had no more signs in the peg and was pleased to hear the final whistle as I was shivering and shaking in the final 15 minutes.

I appear to have lost the results sheet but from memory it went something like this:-

Tony Kent.......................Peg 2...................24lb
Gedge Cooper.................Peg 1...................13-5-0
Chris Love.......................Peg 8..................13-5-0
Mick Keeper...................Peg 10.................5-8-0
Ben (whose surname I always forget)....Peg 9.....5--0-0
Plummers........................Peg 11................3-8-0
Dave Bacon.....................Peg 3..................2-12-0
Dave Pearson.................Peg 5....2-8-0 (including GREAT BIG Carp)
Bubbs...........................Peg 7.....DNW (Had a skimmer and a roach)
Mick the Bookie.........Peg 6........DNW (No suprise there then) !!!!!

This Sunday I have bottled out of going fishing as the weather forecast says freezing cold, more snow and 20 MPH winds, and as the Wildlife centre is struggling for people to complete their shifts, I am going to pop in there and help out feeding the Hedgehogs and other assorted Wildlife that has been brought in.

If you are brave / silly enough to venture out fishing in this weather be very very careful, there will be loads more days you can fish in the future so don't take any unnecessary risks now.

Sumners Pond - Ribbon Lake

2009-12-22T11:54:00.001-08:00

There are some days in winter when I really wonder why we bother going match fishing........and this was one of them !

Despite giving Plummers the opportunity to drop out during the week (to be honest it was me who wasn't too keen), he still insisted on picking me at what seemed like the middle of Friday night and we arrived at Summers at 7.20am to find we were first to arrive - well that was a suprise as I could probably have had an extra hour in bed and still been on time for the draw.

Anyway, a motley crew of 10 hardy anglers finally turned up and after a breakfast that looked as though it could be the best part of the day, we made our way up to the Ribbon Lake. Unlike the other lakes, Ribbon Lake was mostly frozen apart from where Plummers (Peg 10) and Tony Yakkinarni (Peg 9) drew. I was on Peg 7 with Don Garnish and Terry Harrison either side of me for company.

After a spot of ice breaking, I decided to fish one rig in the deep water at about 7 metres, where it was about 7 foot deep and another rig towards the island in front of me at about 11 metres where the depth was about 3 foot. The lake is full of skimmers, small crucians and tench, roach and small chub but with the conditions as they were, I expected chub and roach to be the main fish feeding and maybe the odd skimmer and crucian showing.

The match started slowly for everyone and after an hour or so I'd had 3 little chub and 2 roach and was probably in the frame as Yakkinarni led with about 12 small chub. With the wind blowing almost straight in my face I had to go for a wander to warm up after a couple of hours and found Plummers fishing in his new "Camoflage Coat" and nearly walked straight past him as he blends in so well with all the vegetation !

Plummers had caught a couple of roach and also had a decent size skimmer which at this time probably put him in second place as in the pegs 1-6 only God (Steve Gardener) had caught more than one fish. Arriving back at my peg, I managed to get the odd little chub or roach from the far side but hardly anything in the deeper water. What was frustrating was that you could only seem to catch 1 or 2 chub before they seemed to disappear for a while and took ages to return.

Terry Harrison to my right started to catch the odd skimmer and Yakkinarni was still catching chub but apart from that everyone else was struggling and the only thing that was still feeding on my maggots was this Robin ! I did start to pick up a few chub in the last twenty minutes but as the match ended the temperature started to drop and our ice holes had soon started to ice over again.

Alan the Bailiff then came round with the scales and revealed the following:-

Result

Tony Yakkinarni....................5-3-0
Steve Gardener.....................4-0-0
Plummers..............................3-10-0
Donald Garnish.....................2-3-0
Dave Pearson........................2-0-0
Terry Harrison....................1-15-8

So despite not framing, at least I managed to give Harrison a good whupping off the next peg (and there wont be many people that do that on a silvers match), although I did have to give Plummers another pound.

With the weather still freezing cold and the snow looking like it's staying for a while, I've nothing planned for next Sunday but will no doubt find somewhere to get out on the bank for my weekly match fishing fix. Until then, have a great Xmas everyone.

Pikey's Winter League - Final Round

2009-12-13T13:25:00.000-08:00

I just knew that the final round of my league at Willinghurst was not going to go well for me when having postponed my pre draw Egg and Bacon sandwich to go and peg Cherrytree lake I arrived back at the Cabin only to find that they had now run out of Eggs !

Unfortunately with my "Over The Hill" team needing a decent result to overhaul Don's Foxy Five team at the top of the table, we were without Smiffy (probably the top individual in the league this season) and Paul Taylor and to make things worse, one of their replacements hadn't turned up, meaning we were already playing catch up. Having chastised Swanny for drawing us the awful end Peg 8 in the last round, we gave him the opportunity to redeem himself and what did he do ? Yes, he drew us Peg 8 again and I wont tell you what we called him as there may be women or children reading this !

Anyway, I was actually quite pleased with my draw, Peg 16 on Pittance as it is a peg I have won from before in winter and it is also my favourite lake at Willinghurst. Expecting it to be hard following the colder weather and recent influx of cold rainwater, I had decided to fish dead maggot on two lines at 10 and 2 o'clock hoping to catch carp, the odd skimmer and roach, whilst I also set up a rig to fish just down the shelf long to my left and also by some rushes in the edge.

Having won a few winter matches on Pittance in the winter fishing a waggler and maggot on the bottom, I also set one of them up as it enables you to search the peg looking for fish. As usual, as the match began the wind started to get up I was just so pleased that it was coming from behind me as those on the other bank including Gedge and Plummers looked a tad cold !

To say the lake fished quite hard at the start would have been a slight understatement as with half the match gone, I think 3 OUNCES was winning the lake and I couldn't believe that I hadn't had a bite, especially on the waggler as the wind was perfect for it and I could shot the float down to a dimple.

With about 2 hours remaining a few carp started to put in an appearance as first Mick Farrington on Peg 13 had a couple against the island then Plummers had one on the lead.
Meanwhile those of us at the near end of the lake were still carpless until Terry Cod opposite on Peg 1 lobbed his feeder out whilst packing away the rest of his gear and sure enough snared a carp. With an hour to go, it was time to concentrate on fishing my edge swim and after about ten minutes the float dipped and I was soon being played by what was either a very big fish or a foulhooker as yards and yards of white hydro emerged from the end of my pole. Luckily nobody had noticed what was going on as we'd spent the whole afternoon trying to put off everyone else as they played fish. After a brief struggle, the carp won our little contest and my rig came back with a very bent hook.

With half an hour to go the float disappeared again and this time it was not only a smaller fish but hooked in the mouth as well. And, after a very very careful piece of fish "Playing", I eventually netted a carp of about 3lb which was much to Gedge's displeasure as he was now the only one on the lake who hadn't caught a carp. In hindsight, I wish I'd gone down the edge earlier as the majority of carp caught were either in the edge or in the shallower water against the island.

Plummer's edge peg was solid at the end of the match and he finished with 5 carp for 28lb to win the lake (and my £1) with me recording 3-6-0 for 4 section points as the final result looked like this:-

Result

Terry Harrison...............Old 24...........................48-6-0
Brian Wallin....................New 16..........................36-0-0
Plummers.......................Pittance 5.....................28-4-0
T Bag...............................Old 1..............................25-8-0
Mick Seymour...............New 3............................24-0-0
Donald Garnish.............New 9............................24-0-0

Final League Table

Foxy Five...................................15
Molesey......................................20
Over The Hill............................21
Down The Edge.........................23
Willinghurst Cabin...................24
Willinghurst Muppetts............31
Decca.........................................31
Bookie Bashers........................42

So that is it for another series, the fishing wasn't brilliant but as usual, the blokes who fish the league made up for that.

Next weekend I have a family "Do" onthe Sunday so am having a trip to fish the Ribbon Lake at Sumners Pond on Saturday for my weekly match fishing fix. However, the weather forecast says Minus 6 on Friday night and Minus 3 all day saturday so don't expect too much as far as fish catching is concerned. Although for the Scottish contingent reading this, those temperatures must sound like their normal Autumn temperatures !

Oh yes, can you believe it, It's my birthday tomorrow and I've now reached the big 50 ! Where does all the time go, it only seems like yesterday that I was in my teens and running a stick float down the far bank of the River Mole.

Furnace Lake - Sunday 6th December 2009

2009-12-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that when I woke Sunday morning and the wind was howling and rain battering against my bedroom window, I could quite easily have turned over and gone back to sleep. However, I knew that the nocturnal Plummers would be arriving soon (twenty minutes earlier than we arranged) so I had to get up.

We arrived at the fishery after a hearty breakfast at the Wooden Bridge Cafe in Guildford and found that the large lake was overflowing and running down the waterfall into the small lake that we were fishing. I'd actually never seen a scene like it on a fishery infact it looked just like a River Thames Weir pool as the water cascaded down the stepped over flow, thorugh the lake and out the other end. With only twelve of us fishing, we were lucky that we could leave out the part of the lake that looked like a washing machine and just peg the far end. The majority of us had never seen the lake before (apart from Jason and Dan Cooper who'd fished it Friday and Sunday a couple of weeks ago) so most of us weren't worried where we drew.

I quite fancied my Peg 8 at the far end of the lake as despite Andy Ryan (who we met in the cafe) telling us that you didn't wasnt to draw in the bottom bay, it was tucked away out of the wind and rain. The only worrying thing was that it was a "Pole Only Silvers Match" and within minutes of arriving at my peg, I'd seen signs that there were a few carp about !

I set up a rig to fish in front of me at 10 metres and an edge rig both on 0.12 line which might seem heavy for skimmers but the lake was chocolate brown and I couldn't see it making any difference. After a while the water started to tow quite heavily and as I noticed nearer the island at 14 metres looked like it wasn't moving, I plumbed up and fished there. I then started to get a few indications and the rest of my match went like this:-

Fish 1 - After a biteless first hour, I lifted into my first bite on a small piece of corn and 2 foot of white hydro emerged from the pole tip. As I shipped back to the top three, I lifted the pole expecting to have a big skimmer come to the top. However, as I lifted up, the fish stayed on the bottom and more elastic came out. A couple of minutes later I netted an 8lb carp, which would have put me firmly in the lead had it counted.

Fish 2 - I hooked this one about 5 minutes later and the report went something like Fish 1 but this one went about 12lb !

Fish 3 and 4 - Both carp, one of 6lb and the other about 4lb.

Fish 5,6,7,8 - Hurray, the carp finally buggered off and let the skimmers play as I had four fish over a pound in a little spell of bites, before......................

Fish 9 - Another pig with fins put in an appearance, this one about 8lb.

Fish 10 - My only bite in the last hour, a skimmer of about 2lb.

Result

Jason Morgan....... Peg 2.........27-2-0
Donald Garnish.....Peg 7..........24-6-0
Bob Poulton...........Peg 6..........23-8-0
Tony Kent.............Peg 5..........21-12-0
Tony Yianni..........Peg 3..........21-10-0
Dan Cooper...........Peg 12........21-8-0

So, once again a frustrating day, I shouldn't have listened to Jason who told us that we'd only need pellett and corn as the framers nearly all caught on maggott and I was a bit unlucky to have a few carp in my peg as they seemed to push the skimmers out.

Nevertheless, it was an interesting lake and I'd quite fancy going back when the weather has been a bit drier and there wont be thousands of gallons of water running through the lake.

Sunday sees us back at Willinghurst for the final round of my Winter League and it looks like unless they have a nightmare match, nobody will be catching Don's Foxy Five team.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot Plummers had 16lb and easily beat my 7-4-0, although I claimed a moral victory having caught 5 carp as well !

Pikey's Winter League - Round 5

2009-11-30T12:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry this is a bit late, but I've been busy busy busy at work and not even had time to blog in my lunch break. Anyway, here is Sundays report.

I don't mind the odd drop of rain or a puff or two of wind but when you get both and the wind is in your face all day - like it has been for my last two matches, it is miserable.

After the rain we've had in the last week or two, the majority of lakes at Willinghurst were almost bursting their banks, infact the Top Lake was over flowing and running down the slope causing a waterfall into peg 20 on New lake which with the colour it was washing in to the lake would make it even worse for the poor soul who drew it.

What has become obvious over the previous 4 league matches is that you really need to draw Pegs 3-5, so when Swanny drew for us and came out with the 8 ball, we were mightily unimpressed. It did infact give us a couple of reasonable pegs but also 2 that I really didn't fancy at all. The section draw then put me on New 20, the one peg I really didn't want not only cos of all the extra water running in from Top Lake but also because nearly all the carp are up the other end of the lake !

My first objective was to catch a fish so on went a roach rig to fish caster at 10 metres. My only other float rig was a heavier one to fish for carp in the edge and I also set up a lead to chuck about the peg. On the whistle Mick the Bookie lobbed out a lead and was soon playing the first fish caught on the lake. He did try and tell us it was his super bait and presentation but I think his peg was just SOLID !

I soon avoided the dreaded DNW by placing a gudgeon in my net (which at the time put me 4th on the lake). I then continued to catch the odd roach or rudd but as the match progressed I slipped further and further down the section as everyone up the other end of the lake seemed to catch the odd carp and with them mostly weighing over 8lb (Simmon's had one about 15lb), that was a lot of roach required to catch up. With the wind blowing and heavy rain showers all day, I think I did really well to hold out until 1.40pm before visiting Amy in the Cabin for a Cheeseberger and cup of tea.

A quick wander round the lakes revealed that Smiffy was winning Old Lake from Peg 26, Paul Taylor was winning Pittance with a couple of carp, Swanny was about Mid section with a F1 and some roach from Horseshoe and me and Ross were struggling for points. Having checked out my lake I decided that it was shit or bust for me for the last hour as I needed to catch a carp or two to move me up the section. By this time my brolly had managed to turn itself inside out and I also left my coat in the cabin ! However, as I was now trying hard for a carp I sat it out in the rain and my fleece got heavier and heavier.

As the match ended I was still Carpless and my 4-0-0 of roach did indeed put me last in the section. As expected, the majority of carp came from the other en dof the lake as Simmons won the lake (and the match) from Peg 6 with 46-0-0, followed by Mick Keeper (Peg 10) 34-0-0.

Pound Watch

When Plummers drew probably the most consistant match winning peg on Pittance (Peg 12) I thought I never had a chance of his pound but when he rang me in the middle of a cloudburst to tell me that he was still fishless and was sitting in his car, things were looking up.
Final Result........Pikey 4-0-0.......Plummers DNW. I keep telling him that fishing tangerine sized pieces of paste wont work in winter but he wont listen !

Result

Jeff Simmons..........New 6.............46-0-0
Mick Keeper...........New 10...........34-0-0
Brian Green...........Horseshoe 3....28-8-0
Mark Smith............Old 24..............27-10-0

League

Foxy Five.........................12
Over The Hill...................15
Molesey............................18
Down The Edge...............19
Willinghurst Cabin...........23
Decca.................................24
Willinghurst Muppetts...27
Bookie Bashers................34

I have to say that I am having a miserable time match wise at the moment, I don't think the weather has been helping but I am looking forward to fishing a new venue to me on Sunday as 12 of us are having a little match on the Small Lake at Furnace Lakes. Jason Morgan has told us that everyone will catch at least 40lb of skimmers so I can hardly wait !

Long Copse Ponds - 22nd November 2009

2009-11-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

Regular readers, and yes there are apparently a few (especially in Scotland, or so my Big Bruv tells me), will know how much I look forward to my Leatherhead DAS matches on our club ponds. Part of the reason is that both ponds are full of fish and even in winter you can usually catch a fish or two and the other reason is that they are only a couple of hundred yards from my front door and I can (and do) walk to the draw, meaning I don't have top rely on others for a lift.

I would think that of all the matches I have fished on the ponds over the years, at least 90% of them have been won from the Top Lake as this contains more bigger carp in the 1-3lb range whilst the Botom Pond has more small crucians, small carp and Goldfish in it. Don't laugh, there are plenty of Goldfish like this in both ponds and some even bigger ones in the Bottom pond.

Up until this week I've always drawn really well at the ponds, usually drawing a rushes peg on the Top Lake and had quite a few 50lb+ weights fishing my favourite paste tactics, even in the middle of winter.

Sunday morning arrived and with the weather wet and windy, I really fancied a peg out of the wind so I could at least put my brolly up without it taking off with me and my box attached. A brief look at the pegging pre draw revealed that I really wanted pegs 1-8 and 13 and 14 on the Top Lake and whilst I didn't really fancy the bottom lake, if I had to fish it then pegs 15 and 16 near the rushes would do me. As I helped Pete Turnbull with the draw I watched most of the decent pegs go, except Peg 8 which had won the last two matches with weights exceeding 60lb both times. With only me and Pete to draw, the 2 remaining pegs were 8 and 17 and as Ross was standing by the draw and would only moan if I drew the flier (especially as he'd drawn Peg 9) I let him draw for me. You would think that after we'd travelled to matches together for probably 30 years, he'd have done the decent thing and draw me the flier wouldn't you ? Well, he didn't and when I went for my first walk after an hour of the match he'd advised me that Pete was winning the match and caught his first carp after .........43 SECONDS !

Anyway, back to my match. Peg 17 was on the right hand bank of the bottom lake and whilst I did have a lot of room, I did also have the wind right in my face which would be a nightmare if the rain returned (which it no doubt would). The Top Lake for me has always been an all out paste attack but with a lot of much smaller fish in the Bottom Lake my approach was to fish a 4mm or 6mm expander on a lighter 0.12 rig but also fish a paste line as well in case some of the bigger carp made an appearance.

What followed for the next 6 hours was a battle with the elements as first the wind got up, making fishing a paste rig almost impossible, then we had a half hour thunder storm where I just sat under my brolly and held on for dear life. Then the rain and wind stopped and the sun came out.......right in front of me so I couldn't see anything at all except a bright orange ball reflected in the water and then when the sun moved round a bit meaning I could at least see my float, the wind direction changed and blew about three million leaves in my peg and I found it hard to get a bait in the water !

The frustrating thing was that when I could present a bait properly there were a few fish to be had, mainly small crucians and roach but with the odd 1lb carp as well. John Clifford (on the opposite bank with the wind behind him and no ripple) caught on and off for most of the match (including 4 or 5 decent size Goldfish) and although he said he fished soft pellett I'm not sure that this wasn't his real bait.

With only 5 of us on the Bottom Lake, it didn't take us long to weigh in. Brian Wharton and Matthew Jefferies on the pegs I fancied weighed 2-7-0 and 1-14-0 respectively before I placed my 12-8-0 on the scales, followed by John whose lovely net of small carp, crucians and Goldfish went 27-0-0 - see below.

As I took my gear round to the other pond, they had just started weighing in so I followed the scales round and as I chatted to the others it looked like John might actually sneak a win as although Pete Turnbull and Jack DeAlmeida had both caught about 10 or11 carp each, they were only small and neither thought they had done enough to pip John. Sure enough Peter's fish went 22lb odd and Jack weighed 19lb for third place, So with John winning it meant that I picked up a handy £20 for a section win. A special well done to Jack who has only recently started fishing club matches and gave Dorking ace Terry Harrison a good whupping off the next peg !
Result

John Clifford........ Peg 20.................27-4-0

Peter Turnbull.....Peg 8...................22-5-0

Jack ......................Peg 6...................19-6-0

Sections

Top Lake - Jeff Simmons.....Peg 14......15-14-0

Bottom Lake - Dave Pearson....Peg 17...12-6-0

All in all, a disappointing day for me but having heard the tales of woe from others since regarding the weekends fishing, I didn't actually have a bad day.

Next week sees us back at Willinghurst for Round 5 of my Winter League, with me hoping to improve on my blank in the last round and try to help my team stay top of the League.

Back Arun - Sunday 15th November 2009

2009-11-16T04:43:00.000-08:00

Sunday saw a large proportion of the "Willinghurst Mafia" making it's way to the South coast to fish the Back Arun open at Arundel and fortunately we managed to find an alternative to the MacDonalds breakfast I had to endure last time. However, whilst I did enjoy my Little Chef breakfast, I left feeling that I had been mugged as two Olympic breakfasts and drinks (for me and Ross) came to £19.20 ! Now I remember why they are affectionately known as Little Thiefs.

Anyway, we arrived at Arundel with the weather still wet and windy but not as bad as had been predicted. Following my first visit a couple of weeks ago, I fancied drawing Pegs 8 or 9 and anywhere between 17 and 30. Ross drew Peg 10 (which I really didn't fancy as it doesn't have many features to fish to) but luckily Malcolm (the owner) told him it had won more matches than any other peg recently so at least he was fairly happy. I had a quick rummage about in the draw bag and finally came up with Peg 18 (just two pegs from where I drew last time) and a peg I really liked the look of.

With an 8.30 draw and a 9.30 start, this gave little time to hang around so I quickly made my way to my peg and set up a rig to fish by the weedbed to my right, one to fish by the rushes to my left and one to fish at 14 metres to the bare far bank. All rigs were on 0.18 line attached to red hydro - and if you've ever fished Back Arun then you'll know why !

Having set up my rigs I then set about setting up my anniversary present from Mrs Pikey (pictured left). I know they are heavy and very expensive but they are very good and will be invaluable on the rare occasions that I have to fish at more than 6 metres !

I started off fishing small cubes of luncheon meat and feeding a little liquidised meat but in hind sight should really just have fished maggott. The best bite I had in the first hour was when I put an AAA shot on the bend of the hook to plumb the depth and not only did a fish swim into the line and drag the float under but it also managed to hook itself somehow and started to pull the elastic out !

With the cold rain of the previous few days making the fishing hard, everyone seemed to be struggling and it wasn't until the final couple of hours that I started to get the odd bite and finished with 4 carp and a roach for 9-4-0. The good news was not only was it enough to beat Plummers (whose feeble catch of 2 carp and 3 barbel can almost be seen here, if it wasn't mostly hiding under his hands) but it also put me third in my 12 peg section and won me £30.

At Back Arun they don't do an overall payout but split the match into two sections (as they say that one end is far better than the other) and pay the first three in each section and the result went like this.

Section A Pegs 2-18

Tony Kent............Peg 2................38-8-0
Ken Norman........Peg 8................19-6-0
Dave Pearson......Peg 18...............9-4-0

Section B Pegs 19-30

Mick Prankus......Peg 21..............22-12-0
Martin Bond........Peg 19..............22-2-0
Mick Keeper........Peg 22.............10-12-0

Pound Watch

Regular readers will know that Plummers usually draws better than Rolf Harris but this time I manged to give him a proper beating by 9-4-0 to about 6lb and he couldn't even find a pound coin to give me !

Next Sunday sees me back at one of my favourite venues, the Leatherhead DAS club ponds round the corner from my house - a match I can walk to and hopefully given a half decent draw will catch a few fish.

Pikey's Winter League - Willinghurst

2009-11-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

An Apology

Before I give a detailed report on this weeks piscatorial activities, I need to make an apology to Jeff Dickinson (aka The Man in Black) as after he won Round 3 of my Winter League, I apparently wrote on here that the match was won by Jeff Simmons ! For anyone who has seen Simmons fish, you will know that this was clearly a typing error as he is unlikely to ever win anything !

Anyway, as regular readers will know, I started my new job on Monday which meant that I had to work a five day week for the first time in about 5 years so there was no Wednesday match for me. However, to be fair, as only 6 anglers turned up for our usual match and it fished crap anyway then I wasn't too upset !

Sunday saw me back at Willinghurst for Round 4 of my Winter League and with Smiffy drawing for us, we couldn't go wrong........except this time he drew us probably the worst set of pegs in the draw ! Looking down the sheet, I was off to Horseshoe 1, a peg I'd never fished before but one I still fancied for a few fish.

To cut a long story short, the lake, that is full of F1's and carp fished like a drain with John Radford next to me catching the only carp - 3 F1's and a proper carp for 15-2-0. The other weights were all made up of roach with Terry Harrison winning the lake with 15-8-0.
I fished a couple of lines with small pieces of catfood, corn and pellett and when I was still biteless with three hours to go, even tried maggott just to catch a fish but couldn't catch on that either. So, I finally ended the match with my first blank of the season !

Teamwise, I knew that Ross had struggled on Oaktree and Paul Taylor had only caught a few roach, so with my blank, I was expecting us to be in the bottom two or so. Fortunately, as the boards came back they revealed that Smiffy had won Old Lake (and the match) with 63-12-0 and Swanny was 2nd on Pittance with 33lb giving us a much needed 15 pts to add to the 3 each scored by Ross and Paul.

Result

Mark Smith......................Over The Hill.......Old 1............63-12-0
Mick "Wicket" Keeper....Foxy Five............New 10.........41-14-0
Donald Garnish................Foxy Five............Pittance 10...35-0-0
John Swann......................Over The Hill......Pittance 1.....33-2-0
Dave Bacon......................Foxy Five.............Old 11...........32-2-0

Teams On The Day

Foxy Five................................32 Pts
Willinghurst Muppetts..........26 pts
Decca........................................25 pts
Over The Hill..........................21 pts
Down The Edge......................21 pts
Molesey...................................21 pts
Willinghurst Cabin.................18 pts
Bookie Bashers.......................10 pts

League

Over The Hill.......................11 pts
Foxy Five.............................11 pts
Down The Edge.................. 12 pts
Molesey................................16 pts
Decca.....................................16 pts
Willinghurst Cabin...............20 pts
Willinghurst Muppetts.......23 pts
Bookie Bashers...................28 pts

So, although I had a disaster (even losing a pound to Plummers who only had one carp), the team remains top with 2 rounds to go and I just hope we don't lose our 3 stars (Smiffy, Swanny and Paul Taylor) for the next round as they may have to go and fish elsewhere.

It's work for me on Wednesday so I'll have to wait for next weeks return trip to Back Arun for my next outing, which following our maiden trip in the wind and rain, I'm really looking forward to.

Back Arun

2009-11-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

With all the lakes at Willinghurst being taken by the Surrey Winter League and nothing much else on, Mick "Wicket" Keeper suggested that we all book in on the Back Arun open at Arundel. Despite most of us having not fished it before, about 12 of us booked in and although the weather forecast was horrible, we were all looking forward to fishing a new venue.

In the days leading up to the match the weather forecast for Arundel was heavy rain and 32 MPH winds, which didn't bother me in the slightest as the weather forecasts are nearly always wrong when we fish. Sure enough, match day arrived and when Plummers picked me up at 6.30am it was mild, a bit breezy but no rain at all.

However, as we got closer to the venue, the rain started and the wind blew ! And, after a "Plastic" breakfast at MacDonalds (the only breakfast location we could find) we arrived at the car park to find the rain was getting heavier and the wind stronger.

The draw meant nothing to most of us but having Drawn Peg 20 I was pleased to find that not only did I have a couple of weedbeds either side to fish against but the wind was also mainly from behind. I set up my Maver H10 edge pole with red hydro through the top 2 as I'd heard loads of stories about people losing fish inthe weed and rushes, set up a couple of rigs on 0.18 G Line to fish against the weedbeds either side and an edge rig as well.

On the whistle I cupped in some dead maggots on all three lines and before I had finished doing so, the chap on the next peg caught a carp of about 3lb - which turned out to be his only one Fishing double or triple maggot I started to catch the odd small rudd but the wind was so bad now that I really had to fish over depth rather than dead depth and have a lot more float showing than I would have liked due to the waves on the water.

My first carp fell to maggot but when the wind and rain abated slightly I switched to corn and the rest of my match went like this :-

Carp 1 - Fishing double maggot I looked away for a second to see why water was running down my neck and felt the pole tip move as my first carp (about 3lb) made a bid for freedom but was quickly subdued by the red hydro. Pikey 1 Carp 0

Carp 2 - Switching to corn, I had Number 1's big brother - about 6lb. It managed to get in the weedbed I was fishing against but steady pressure soon extracted it and once in the open water gave no problems. 2-0

Carp 3 - Not a very clever fish as when hooked it swam AWAY from the weedbed......However, still cleverer than me as it then swam past the open water into the other weedbed and snagged me ! 2-1

Carp 4 - Swam into the weedbed- wouldn't come out ! 2-2

Carp 5 - No problem........3-2

Carp 6 - Swam off to the far bank with my hook ! 3-3

Carp 7,8,9 and 10 - All about 2lb - No problem

Final Score..........Pikey 7 Carp 3 !

Despite the weather I quite enjoyed the day - especially the last two hours as the rain stopped and I do enjoy fishing venues where you can place your float against features and get a few bites.
My final weight was 20-4-0 which put me 7th overall and one out of the money in my section.
Plummers took another pound from me finishing one fish and just under 2lb ahead of me, despite losing about 10 fish when his black hydro wasn't up to the job !

Result

Tony Yianni...........Peg 8............35-4-0
JasonMorgan.........Peg 29.........31-4-0
Alec Bicknell..........Peg 25.........29-0-0
Plummers..............Peg 9...........23-12-0
Mick Chip..............Peg 26..........21-12-0
Andy Honness......Peg 1.............21-4-0
Dave Pearson.......Peg 20..........20-4-0

So the "Method Boys" took the first two places, although I think the pole will out score it if it isn't so windy next time we go.

No fishing for me this Wednesday (or any future Wednesdays for a while) as I start my new job with Rainbow Trust Children's Charity on Monday and have to work a FIVE day week !

I'll see if I can find a guest blogger to keep you amused but if not I'll be back next week with a report on Round 4 of my Winter League.

Double Header Weekend - Part 2

2009-10-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's a bit late - been tied up with stuff for my new job that starts Monday, but as my big brother has just emailed me to complain that last Sunday's report is late, I thought I'd better get on with it.

Anyway, Sunday saw us back at Willinghurst for Round 3 of my Winter League and with us sitting pretty at the top of the league (well top anyway), tied with Plummers team, my "Over The Hill" team needed another half decent performance to keep us there. Personnel wise we were again missing Haisman (who had no doubt gone fishing with his new Polish friends), plus Swanny and Paul Taylor from the previous rounds. We were therefore left with Me, Ross and Smiffy, plus a couple of able deputies (well one really) in Joe Clarke and Stuart Wilson (Squeeky Roller from Match Fishing Scene).

Smiffy had managed to draw us some decent pegs in the first two rounds but wasn't quite as good this time as Peg 6 stuck to his hot little hand and gave us a couple of tricky pegs, along with one flier and two reasonable ones. My draw put me on Peg 10 on Horseshoe which Plummers did win the first match from but a lot had changed weather wise since then and it had recently produced 2 F1's and a DNW. Plummers, who is still drawing better than Rolf Harris was on Peg 12 - where me and Steve Sanders had both had over 100lb from in thre previous 2 matches, so I was all ready to hand over my £1 before the start.

With about 4 pints of casters left from the Glebe, my plan of attack was to feed caster heavily down the right hand margin, fish pellett on along line for F1's and carp and fish a paste line at 6 metres.

After a biteless first hour on the long pole I had a quick look in the margin and was immediately catching roach and rudd, not enough to do any good as one carp would beat most roach weights, however, it was better than catching nothing. The second and third hours produced a few more roach and one F1 of about 2lb on double caster on the long line and then it was time to try for an edge dweller or two. The state of play on the lake was that Dave Bacon on Peg 16 was probably winning but Terry Molloy had visited Ben Emery on Peg 2 and not only convinced him to try a floating pole but also made him a rig as well, and as soon as he tried it, he started to catch F1's.

I hade one decent carp of about 8lb in my edge caster peg but then decided to fish at 14 metres along towards peg 9 where a yellow topped float showed perfectly in the dark water and fish corn. After a while I had a couple of liners before the float disappeared and I had a fish of about 10lb. However that was it for me and with a couple of us having two carp (including Plummers), it was going to be close for the points, and as we weighed in, the sheet looked something like this:-

Peg 1.........Geoff Simmons.................31-0-0..........6 pts
Peg 2.........Ben Emery.......................45-4-0..........8 pts
Peg 3.........Ian Covey.........................17-8-0...........2 pts
Peg 5.........Hayden Woods................21-0-0...........4 pts
Peg 7.........Gedge Cooper..................4-12-0...........1 pt
Peg 10......Dave Pearson...................23-0-0...........5 pts
Peg 12......Tony Plumbridge.............18-6-0..........4 pts
Peg 16......Dave Bacon........................43-8-0.........7 pts

Individually Jeff Simmons proved a popular winner with 82-12-0 from Peg 19 on Old lake, followed by Reg The Edge who was the only angler out of the 40 who thought it was a 9 o'clock draw rather than the 8am that it was. Anyway, he finally sorted himself out and managed 57-4-0 from Old 5, ahead of Mick Seymour 55-4-0 (Pittance 10) and Joe Clarke53-12-0 (Pittance 13).

Team wise we finished 4th with 22 points but as the first two teams were well behind us in the league, we moved one point ahead of Plummers team with three rounds still to go.

League

Over the Hill...............7 pts
Down the Edge...........8 pts
Foxy Five..................10 pts
Molesey.....................12 pts
Decca..........................13 pts
Willinghurst Cabin...13 pts
Bookie Bashers.........20 pts
Willinghurst Muppets....21 pts

I'm off to Arundel on Sunday for my first visit to Back Arun fishery, and having looked at the weather I may either get drenched or blown away - If I survive then I'll be back here next week with a report !

Another Double Header Weekend

2009-10-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw me attending the Match Fishing Scene "Champions League Final" on Lake 1 at the Glebe on Saturday and Round 3 of my winter league at Willinghurst on Sunday.

To qualify for the champions league final, you just fished a number of MFS matches throughout the year and received points based on you performance overall and in your section. Your top 6 results counted and if you were in the Top 20 you qualified for the final - or if you were unable to make it then the next person in the league replaced you. Fortunately for us, both Gary Thorpe and Pete Bailey were both unavailable for the final !!!!

I was travelling with my mate Ross and because he didn't fancy driving up and back in a day especially after a days fishing, we decided to travel up late Friday morning to avoid the traffic (that didn't work) and spend a couple of hours at the Glebe with Roy Marlow and Wilkie who are both mates of Ross.

We arrived at about 2 o'clock to find that there was a match on Pegs 12-30 and with a few pleasure anglers spread out on the other pegs, we managed to plonk our gear on Pegs 6 and 7.

Ross set up his GB feeder whilst I decided to have a go on the pole as I "Don't Do the feeder".
Roy was "coaching" Ross and didn't seem too impressed when his first cast went up the tree on the far bank. I though was very impressed when Roy strolled round the lake to the far bank to unhook his rig from the tree - and waited for the next cast just in case !

I cupped in a couple of pots of casters and meat at 11 metres and soon caught a few carp - including a 9lber and despite getting told off by Wilkie with comments like "has someone nicked your catapult" and "Feed more down the edge" I had a couple of pleasant hours fishing, and as the light started to fade I started to catch down the edge including a barbel of about 3lb.

Whilst I am usually very competitive when it comes to match fishing, I really knew that as I wasn't going to fish the feeder at this time of year I was unlikely to frame.
I don't really enjoy feeder fishing as I am crap at casting to the same spot twice, although having seen some of the anglers on Saturday I was unsure whether you needed to !

Ross had spoken to both Roy and Wilkie prior to our visit and I don't know if they got their wires crossed but I ended up taking loads of casters and two tins of meat. When we met up on Friday they both denied telling Ross to take them !!!!! However, as I only had casters meat and paste with me, I had little choice but to try them.

At the draw, I picked Peg 11 which really meant nothing to me but the good news was that my blank peg was below me which meant I could comfortably fish down wind in the edge. We all had at least one to one side of us - except Ross and Martin Churchill (Fishy 007) who seemed to have half the lake between them.

I decided that my main plans of attack were going to be pole and caster / meat at 11 metres, paste at 5 metres and caster down the edge. I started off by cupping a couple of pots of caster and meat on the longer line, some pellets and hemp at 5 metres and some casters down the edge. As the match started the rain came and it gave me the chance to test out my new Super Douper Korum umbrella. After 45 minutes, I was still fishing the pole at 11 metres and was still biteless whilst Roly Lucas (on Peg 13 had already had 5 fish on the feeder and I began to get the feeling that I had cocked up big time by not setting up a feeder !

Roving reporter Andy T came along with his little video and I didn't realise straight away what he was doing until I suddenly twigged that he was trying to gather evidence of me fishing more than 6 metres out as nobody would believe him otherwise ! I then totally bemused him as I showed him another of my rigs which I described as my UITW rig - I wasn't sure what it meant or what to do with it but he looked suitably impressed that I'd set one up.

I then decided to try fishing a bit closer in (as I was in danger of getting a nose bleed fishing that far out) and came in to 8 metres where I could feed casters by hand. It took a while for the fish to move in on the shorter line but after an hour or so I started to pick up the odd skimmer, "Buddy Carp" and a couple of 4lbers. As the rain had eased off - and it is a nightmare trying to play fish from under a brolly (especially when you can only use a maximum of black hydro) I decided to take my brolly down - at least I tried to as the button on the spindle wouldn't budge !

As the afternoon progressed, the wind got stronger, I couldn't get a bite on paste but did keep picking up the odd carp on double or treble caster along with a couple of decent perch. With the wind gusting quite strongly now, my brolly then decided to give up the ghost and almost turned inside out before pulling all the covering from the frame - well at least I could now put it down as I just took it up the bank and laid my rod bag on it !

Nearing the end of the match it looked like Roly was going to be a clear winner with Martin next to him filling second place. I'd fed my edge peg all day and with 15 minutes to go decided to have my final look. Ten minutes from the end the float shot under and I was attached to an angry carp of about 7lb, I soon had that in the net but as I lfted it, one of the arms on my landing net snapped which was just what I needed after the earlier brolly malfunction. Out I went again and within seconds had hooked another fish, which I netted just as the "All Out" was shouted. I nipped along the bank to see Ross and Hathers who'd drawn next to each other and found that they'd had a nightmare match with only one carp and a few skimmers each.

As I returned to my peg I picked up my edge rig to put it away but decided to have one last put in before packing up. Yes, you've guessed it, 20 seconds later I'd hooked another carp ! I think that is one of the most frustrating things in Match fishing when the fish turn up in the edge and are having it big time just as the match ends.

Having packed up I made my way along the bank to watch the weigh in - I think this is one of the best parts of our Glebe matches as everybody walks along with the scales and basically takes the micky out of those weighing in. As expected Roly weighed 101-4-0 for a comfortable victory ahead of Martin with 74-12-0. My carp and silvers net went 54-10-0 which put me in 5th place, just 4 ounces behind Rob Austin and 6lb behind third placed Jamie Jones (Dotteddown) As the results were announced I'd won a copy of Keith Arthur's book and Ross (who you may remember came last with 8lb) finished up in the winning team and picked up £25 - how can that be right !

Thanks to those that organised the League and final, I for one will certainly trying to qualify for the final again next year.

Come back tomorrow for a report on Sunday's League match.

ps The good news regarding my brolly is that having slagged it off for only lasting 4 hours, I discovered afterwards that the covering is velcroed to the arms so that they get pulled out if the brolley goes inside out and in thh car park afterwards we put it back together and it is as good as new - and Andy T managed to fix the button and it works ok now !

Willinghurst - Wednesday 21st October 2009

2009-10-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

After 18 months of volunteering I finally donned my weddings and funerals suit last Friday, spent a very unpleasant hour being interogated (I hate interviews) and managed to get a "Proper" (ie paid) job as a Fundraising Admin Assistant with Rainbow Trust Children's Charity !

And whilst it was a job I really wanted, the downside is that my regular Wednesday fishing has to come to an abrupt halt as I will be working a FIVE day week !

With a start date of 2nd November, Wednesday saw me at Willinghurst for my penultimate Wednesday match and with the match split between Horseshoe and Old lakes, I really wanted to draw Horseshoe as I'd finished second on it with just over 100lb last week.

I have to say that I was a bit confused as I plucked the yellow peg from the hat as the fact that it was yellow meant I was on Old Lake but it said 23 on it - which is a peg that I've never known them put in ! Fortunately for me, the cooler weather meant that a lot of the fish had moved off the shallower bar in the middle of the lake - meaning that it was unlikely to be a method feeder match and with the pegging well spread out, I fancied catching a decent weight on the pole. I did however end up with a little less room than I had at first anticipated as Hayden Woods either forgot the earlier draw - or just couldn't be bothered to get out of bed (knowing Hayden it was probably the latter) and when he finally turned up, they decided that he could fish peg 26, which meant that I was no longer the end peg.

When I arrived at my peg, I decided that it was a bit of inspired pegging by Brian Wharton (who we usually slag off for his "Stevie Wonder Pegging") as I'd drawn Peg 24 a couple of weeks ago and the shadow of the tree branches outside the cabin made it almost impossible to see a float on the long pole line. However Peg 23 had two distinct areas of "White water" where a black topped float could be seen easily. I set up two rigs to fish pellett at 12.5 metres (the usual 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock) and a paste rig (just in case) to fish at about 6 metres just down the shelf.

Having cupped in a few 4mm pelletts on all 3 lines, I spent the first 15 minutes or so on the waggler as a few fish had been showing shallow towards the bar but as neither myself or God (Steve Gardener) opposite caught on it, I was soon on the pole. Although I didn't catch straight away, I could tell that there were some fish in the peg as my float that had been shotted with a quarter of an inch of bristle showing was now down to a mere dimple on the surface as the fish disturbed the silt and the weight of the pellett pulled the float down further. I was just going to ship back and adjust the float when my dimple disappeared and I was suprised to find that a 6lb carp was the culprit ! I don't have a lot of confidence in fishing pelletts as I don't do it very much but had a lovely morning lifting a dropping the bait and at the halfway stage had 10 fish in the net for about 60lb. Although God was catching well on the pole (as well as anythig else he tried), so was Steve Sanders on the Peg on Horseshoe that I framed from the week before, but I thought I might sneak third place or at least a section win if I could have a decent second half of the match.

Unfortunately it didn't quite go to plan - whether or not I over / under fed it I don't really know but whilst the two Steve's continued to catch (that's probably why they fish for Dorking / England and I don't) my second half only produced another 5 fish. And whilst I did have an enjoyable match, finishing with 87lb for third place, I was a bit frustrated that I didn't have a better second half as that is usually when you catch a lot more at Willinghurst - I did however learn a bit more about pellett fishing and that will help in the coming months no doubt.

Result

Steve Gardener.........Old 5...........................133-4-0

Steve Sanders...........Horseshoe 12.............126-14-0

Dave Pearson............Old 23.........................87-0-0

Terry Harrison.........Old 19.........................68-12-0

Alan Harrington.......Horseshoe 3...............64-4-0

Mick Keeper.............Old 14.........................62-8-0

POUND WATCH

Plummers bottled it again and went to work rather than lose another pound !

I've now got a busy couple of days with a Match Fishing Scene "Champions League Final" at the Glebe on Saturday, Round 3 of my Winter League at Willinghurst on Sunday and my final Wednesday match for the forseeable future at Willinghurst, so come back in a day or two to see how I get on.

Willinghurst - Wednesday 14th October 2009

2009-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Well, this was nearly the shortest blog ever as after 3 hours fishing on the peg that Mick the Bookie (probably the worlds worst match angler) had 82lb on sunday I had the grand total of................2 F1's and was preparing to take a lot of stick.

With 12 of us fishing and 6 pegs on Old and 6 on Horseshoe, I was happy to draw Horeseshoe as it had fished quite well on Sunday with 82lb for MTB and 50lb+ weights for Smiffy, Terry The Cod and even Plummers.

Although I knew Mick had caught a few fish on his random "cast the bomb anywhere tactic" I had decided to just fish the pole, in front and down the edge under a tree to my left. Paste just down the shelf in about eight foot of water was my initial starting point but after a while it was clear that it wasn't going to produce much as apart from a couple of indications, the tip of the float remained dry. I then switched to a 6mm expander and had a couple of 2lb F1's but it was still very slow and with Don, Alan Harrington and Hayden Woods all catching a few fish, I was going nowhere fast.

I'd been feeding corn and a bit of hemp down the edge to my left under an over hanging tree and was sure I'd catch there as it was lovely and shady and also a decent depth. The only problem was that there is a big bush / small bushy tree just to the left of the platform which you can't see over when you are sitting on your box, so you have to stand up and fish - which didn't do my back a lot of good I have to say. The other problem was that if you hooked any fish you then had to lift the pole over the bush and pull the fish round in front of you to net them. It isn't easy to explain in words but believe me it wasn't easy ! Fortunately Brian Wallin had drawn the peg the other week and being a gardener, he'd done a bit of "Bush Trimming" and it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Anyway, on went two pieces of corn and within 10 minutes I had my first carp in the net, a very welcome fish of about 10lb. I then had a nightmare 30 minutes where I missed about 8 bites before hooking a rudd of about 4 ounces ! With nothing to lose I quickly set up a paste rig for the edge and with a yellow topped float in the dark water under the tree I could see it brilliantly - except for when it was under the water, which it was first put in as another 10lber joined his mate in the keepnet.

I did try and rest the edge peg by fishing out in front occassionally but still couldn't catch a fish there. I continued to catch fish in the edge, including two fish of about 12 or 13lb and ended the match with 9 carp, two F1's and a rudd for 100-12-0, which put me second on the lake behind Don who had 126lb. With Mick Seymour winning Old Lake with 71lb it was good to have a pick up on what could be my last Wednesday fishing match for a while as I have a job interview on Friday and am not convinced that I can really ask for every wednesday off !

POUND WATCH

Plummers bottled it today - he said he had to work but I think he really knows that now the cold weather is coming that he wont be getting too many of my pound coins for a while.

Result

Donald Garnish.......Horseshoe 16................126-0-0
Dave Pearson..........Horseshoe 12................100-12-0
Alan Harrington.....Horseshoe 3....................72-4-0
Mick Seymour........Old 14..............................71-4-0

Sunday sees us on the "Jolly Boys Outing" to Walters Lake near Swindon which will make a pleasant change from fishing Willinghurst all the time - come back Monday to see how we get on.

Pikey's Winter League - Round 2

2009-10-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

Sunday saw us back at Willinghurst for Round 2 of my Winter League and after finishing second behind Plummers team (Down tthe Edge) on Round 1, my team, aptly named "Over the Hill" needed a decent draw and result to put us back where we rightly deserve to be !

As the captains lined themselves up for the 9am draw Ross ambled over to watch and after a couple of team draws was obviously getting bored and decided to try and guesss which ball each captain would draw from the bag. Having go tthe first one correct and then the second, he decided to suggest Peg 5 to Smiffy when he came to draw for us (as it lines up a few decent pegs) and out came.......Peg 5 as Ross made it 3 correct guesses in a row !

The team draw put Ross, Paul Taylor (subbing for Haisman who I think had gone for a day out with his 2 new Polish mates), Smiffy and me on potential lake winning pegs and Swannie on a peg that was a bit hit and miss. However, with only 8 pegs on each lake, there weren't actually that many pegs that I wouldn't have been happy with.

My draw put me on Peg 13 on New Lake which not only produces a few fish from time to time but it is also quite close to the cabin which makes organising the match a bit easier as I can just leave my nets in the peg at the end and pop over to the cabin to sort the money out before the result sheets start to filter back.

I started fishing pellett on the long pole in front of me and although everyone else seemed to have an initial spurt of on eor two fish, I had none. I'd not set up a Paste rig (no honestly I hadn't) but as Plummers was catching a few behind me on Horseshoe, I quickly lobbed out a lead and made one up.

First put in on a shorter line (about 11 metres and off to the right) I had an indication and then a fish of about 6lb. Next put in I had a "Barney Rubble" and I was back in the game ! The next coupl eof hours were as boring as a boring thing as despite switching about between pole and bomb and tryin gthe margins, I couldn't get a sign at all. One more fish followed with an hour to go on three pieces of hair rigged corn on the lead but that was it for me. A very disappointing day indeed from a peg I expected to catch from.

The lake was won by Mick Seymour who drew the favoured point opposite me (Peg 6) and weighed 50lb for a comfortable victory over Gedge Cooper (no I didn't believe it either) with 29lb and me third with 24lb.

As the boards started to come back, Smiffy came second on Horseshoe with 54lb on a lake won by Mick The Bookie - no seriously he did, I know some people are still ringing me to ask if it was a mistake on the weigh sheet but he did apparently weigh in 82lb.

Paul Taylor finished second on Old Lake with 74lb beaten by 2 x Fishomania finalist Ian Covey with 77lb and Swanny managed to catch a few edge dwelling carp on Oaktree to win the lake with 25lb. So with only Ross and the board from Pittance to come back, we were sitting pretty (well as pretty as our team could look) with 28 points out of a possible 32.

As we were sitting waiting I heard someone say "I think Ross has won it" and sure enough he had with just over 100lb. So teamwise it was a superb result with 36 points out of 40 and my third in section being our worst result.

Despite bashing Plummers team by a massive 11 points, they still sneaked in second with 25 pts followed by a three way tie for third place between Decca, Molesey and Foxy Five.

Unfortunately I left my results sheets at Willinghurst so don't have them to hand but I'm sure the results were something like this.......

Result

Ross Nursey................Pittance 12....................100-4-0
Dave Bacon..................Pittance 1........................89-4-0
Mick The Bookie........Horseshoe 12..................82-12-0
Ian Covey...................Old 24...............................77-0-0
Paul Taylor................Old 19...............................74-0-0

Teams

Over the Hill ..........................36 pts
Down the Edge.......................25 pts
Decca.......................................22 pts
Molesey...................................22 pts
Foxy Five................................22 pts

League - After 2 Rounds

Over the Hill.....................3 pts
Down the Edge.................3 Pts
Molesey............................6 pts
Foxy Five.........................7 Pts

I'm back at Willinghurst on Wednesday and on Sunday we are having a "Jolly Boys Outing" to Swindon to fish a new venue to us - Walters Lake which Mick the Bookie has been telling us is on eof the best fisheries around - come back here on Monday to see how we got on.

Spring Grove Ponds - Bookham

2009-10-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

As I cycled home from Wildlife Aid at 1.30pm on Friday afternoon, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and with a club match on the ponds 150 yards from my house on the Sunday, it was the ideal opportunity to sneak round there for a bit of practice.

After a quick call to "The Boss" to get her blessing, I grabbed my H10 edge pole, a bag of Special G groundbait (to make paste as I had none prepared), a landing net and a few bits of tackle and I was on my way - reaching the ponds on foot about 5 mins later !

I set up in one corner in a peg I've always liked where you can fish alongside some rushes and there are always plenty of fish in it. After studying the rushes for a bit, there was a little bay in them at about 10 metres so I chose to fish there. It took a while to get the fish interested as I didn't get a bite first put in ! Although from then onwards it was a fish a chuck, mainly carp between 1 and 3lb but with the odd 4lber. After an hour (which included a lunch break to eat my sandwich) I'd had about 20 carp and was now getting bored as I'd even had two or three fish on the drop in 2 foot of water ! After a quick walk around the lake I decided to move up the other end and just fish in the edge in about 3 foot of water. Although the fishing wasn't quite as hectic, the fish were averaging a pound heavier than in the original swim and I soon got bored with that as well. After another wander around the pond to try and help a couple of youngsters (although they didn't really listen as they always seem to know best), I moved swims again to a peg on the front bank. The same pattern followed as once the fish found the paste, it was a fish a bung until 4.50pm when I decided it was time for home - and in just less than 3 hours I'd had about 40 carp.

Sunday morning arrived (it's really odd walking to a fishing match) and with 20 anglers booked in, the fishing should be ok but you really wanted a draw on the Top Lake (I never draw anywhere else) as the fish are bigger and most of the frame weights come from there. After a quick walk to check out the pegging, I decided that the pegs I really fancied were 1-7 and 11 and 12 on the Top Lake and 13 and 14 on the bottom lake.

Not suprisingly Donald Garnish (who draws better than Rolf Harris) drew Peg 7 (my initial swim on Friday) and then Plummers drew Peg 2 ( my second peg from Friday), Ross drew Peg 4 and suddenly there were only 3 pegs left - two decent Pegs in 5 and 12 and one peg I really really really didn't want - Peg 18 on the bottom lake. So in went the lucky right hand, a quick rummage about and out came............PEG 5 - Yippeeee. I've never drawn on the Bottom Lake in a match and didn't really want to start now !

We usually only fish matches on the ponds during the winter when the river is flooded and all the rushes in the ponds have died down. With the weather still in Autumn mode, all the rushes were still growing well and it was a real problem trying to position my box so that I could fish along them as they do grow out a long way. Living so close to the lakes gave me a distinct advantage as I then popped home to collect my platform and longer legs for my box so I could get an extra foot or so out from the bank to see along the rushes.

I set up two rigs, one to fish along the rushes to my left and one to fish straight out in front of me at about 6 metres at the end of another bed of rushes. I usually don't feed anything on the pond, just letting the paste coming off the hook to feed the peg but as I was fishing two lines, on the whistle I fed a big pot of pelletts out in front as I didn't intend to fish it for a while as I would be too busy bagging down the edge !

Well, things didn't exactly go to plan as apart from Don, everyone seemed to be struggling to get a bite and after an 40 minutes I only had one small carp of about a pound in the net. I really don't know the reason it was fishing so badly, some suggested that it was due to the number of anglers on a small pond but having fished it many a time, I think it was probably due to the change in weather and air pressure. I don't think I have ever fished the pond and the fish haven't started "Blowing" in your peg once you feed even the smallest amount of bait but I never saw a bubble all day.

As others were catching a few fish long, I fed some pelletts out at 10 metres where luckily the depth was the same as at 6 metres and I spent the rest of the match switching about between the three lines and nicking a fish here and there. I did have one little spell when I had 5 bigger fish of about 4lb each down the edge, which when most of the others were probably about 2lb, were a very welcome bonus.

As expected Don finished well clear with 69lb, followed by Hathers who did very well to win the Bottom Lake with 43lb and finish second overall. My 40-10-0 was enough for third place, followed by Ross with 32lb.

Plummers drew the "Nursery Peg", catching loads of small fish for 25lb and another pound went to me ! He has just bought himself a new G10 pole but I think that he may have to send it back as it appears to have a useless Big lump attached to the butt section !

Result

Donald Garnish.............Peg 7...............69lb
Mark Hathway.............Peg 13.............43lb
Dave Pearson...............Peg 5...............40lb
Ross Nursey.................Peg 4...............32lb

The only disapponting thing was that a few new members fished the match and after I'd told them how good it was, it didn't fish to it's true potential.

Pikey's Winter League - Round 1

2009-09-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

I always look forward to fishing my winter league as with the anglers fishing, even if the fishing isn't brilliant, we always have a laugh. I originally started the league 4 or 5 years ago when fed up with handing Dorking anglers my hard earned money each week in the Surrey Division of the Angling Times Winter League, I decided to set up a "Less serious league" where it wasn't just about winning.

Due to the economic climate and I'm sure the fact that Willinghurst isn't fishing as well as before, we were down to 8 teams of 5 this year but with the fishery letting us have 5 lakes it meant that we could spread anglers out and hopefully catch a few more fish.

My team of Me, Ross Nursey, Mark Smith, Gary Haisman and John Swann, and appropriately named "Over the Hill" looked quite strong (apart from the obvious weak link) and when Smiffy drew us Peg 3, we were quite happy as it gave us three or four decent pegs.

I was more than happy with drawing Peg 5 on Pittance as despite being a feeder or lead peg, I did have 150lb+ from it earlier in the summer on the pole. Despite the lake not fishing very well the day before, they did have 13 anglers on the open match and with us only having 8 pegs on the lake I thought we'd all catch a few.

I set up a lead to fish a T Bag to the point of the island, two edge rigs to fish right and left with hemp and corn and a paste line at 12.5 metres at 10 o'clock (so that I wasn't dragging any fish hooked on the lead through the paste line). After feeding the pole lines I started by lobbing out a T bag with a hair rigged 8mm pellett attached towards the point of the island and sat back, waiting to grab the rod as it headed towards the lake, and I waited...........and waited.........and waited ! This was unusual as in previous matches the tip wouldn't sit still with liners before the rod went round and you just reeled in a fish !

Tony Yianni (on Peg 13) was already catching on the method feeder and John Clifford on Peg 1 was catching on the paste, so after 5 or 6 chucks, up the bank went the rod and out came the pole. Second put in, the paste float dipped and I soon had a 3lb carp in the net, followed by a skimmer of about 2lb.

By now, everyone seemed to be catching a few (apart from Mick the Bookie who seemed determined to cast everywhere in the lake except in his own peg ! ). After a couple of hours the wind dropped considerably, the surface of the lake went flat calm and nearly everyone seemed to stop catching.

By messing about with the texture of my paste, I managed to still catch the odd fish until the last 90 minutes or so when everyone started to catch again. I'd been having a look down the edge and had one fish and with an hour to go I had one more but as I was struggling to get a bite on corn, I quickly set up an edge paste rig. In the last hour I had 4 carp and with one pushing 13lb and finished the match with a 4lb fish last put in.

Tony Yianni admitted to 21 carp so I knew that with 15 carp and a skimmer, I wasn't going to win the lake but thought it would be close between some of the others. However, the only thing that really mattered was that I took Simmo's pound and when he weighed 70-8-0, I thought it would be close. Fortunately for me my bonus 13lber made all the difference as my final weight was recorded as 78-0-0.

Back at the cabin, Smiffy had won his lake (and we thought the match) with 106-12-0, Ross had won his lake with 65lb and Swanny was second on his with 81lb, so with 2 section wins and two seconds, all we needed was Haisman to have a half decent result and we'd have walked it !

Well, I could here him moaning about 50 yards away and I did have a little sympathy for him (just a little bit) when I heard that he had arrived at his peg to find two Polish chaps fishing 4 rods in his peg and they'd already fed three bags of GB and 6 tins of corn ! They were still eating the sausages from their barbeque and had also drunk 6 bottles of beer. Anyway, Haisman had 14-14-0 (3 carp) to finish 5th in his section of 8. To be fair, our score of 34 points would normally have been enough to win but Plummers won his lake with 107-0-0 (pipping Smiffy for 1st place by 4 OUNCES) with Tony Kent and Tony Yianni both winning their lakes and Jason Morgan and Alan Harrington finishing third in theirs, they pipped us by 2 points. Well done chaps.

So, the pound I won off Simmons, I had to give straight to Plummers as he stopped the rot of three defeats in a row.

Result - Top Ten

Tony Plumbridge....Down the Edge.......Horseshoe 10......107-0-0
Mark Smith.............Over the Hill...........Old 7.....................106-12-0
Tony Yianni............Down the Edge.......Pittance 13..............95-8-0
John Swann............Over the Hill...........Horseshoe 3............81-0-0
Dave Pearson.........Over the Hill..........Pittance 5................78-0-0
Terry Harrson.......Decca.......................Old 5........................74-0-0
Jeff Simmons.........Muppetts................Pittance 14..............70-8-0
Brian Wallin...........Molesey...................Horseshoe 12.........68-8-0
Ross Nursey..........Over the Hill...........New 6.....................65-6-0
Alan Harrington...Down the Edge.......Old 22.....................63-8-0

Teams

Down the Edge ...............................36 Pts
Over the Hill...................................34 pts
Molesey...........................................25.5 pts
Decca................................................21.5 pts
Foxy Five........................................21.5 pts
Muppetts.........................................17 pts
Bookie Bashers...............................13 pts
Willinghurst Cabin..........................9.5 pts

I'm at Willinghurst on Wednesday then next sunday we have a club match on the ponds just 150 yards from my house so at least I won't have to worry about finding someone to give me a lift to the match as I can walk !

Willinghurst Old / New Lakes

2009-09-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

As I'm very busy at the moment, plus the fact that Mrs Pikey has discovered "Farm World" on Facebook so it is now a race each day to get on the laptop, here is a quick review of what happened wednesday aided by a few photos.

With only 14 pegs on New and Old Lakes you would have thought that the pegging couldn't have been easier but everyone has their own ideas and I ended up on Peg 10 on New Lake which has very little recent form and I'd much rather have draw any of the other pegs.

After about two hours of fishing corn on the pole and only the Willinghurst Pet Goldfish to show for my efforts - modelled here by Plummers, I decided that I just had to set up a lead rod. I spent most of the remaining hours just lobbing a T Bag out into the open water and had to grab the rod 6 times as carp tried to swim off with my rod.

Plummers at the next peg provided some entertainment when he couldn't get a bite in the usual spots in the peg so decided to fish inside the tree, (See Picture) despite the fact that I told him he never ever get a fish out of it.

Sure enough, here he is trying to get his rig back with the score about 3-0 to the carp and they went on to record a convincing 9-0 victory and made off with two of his beloved Hillbilly floats !

Terry Harrison drew a corner peg in Old Lake (Peg 14) and fished a long pole to the bar for a convincing victory with 129-2-0, followed by Jason Morgan fishing the method feeder on New 6 for 94-8-0 and Alan Harrington 80-8-0 on Old 24. John Clifford was still fishless at 3pm but caught 7 fish in the edge late in the match for 77-4-0 - including this beauty of 22-2-0.

Result

Terry Harrison.........Old 14............129-2-0
Jason Morgan...........New 6...............94-8-0
Alan Harrington.......Old 24..............80-8-0
John Clifford.............Old 9................77-4-0
Ross Nursey.............New 5..............75-10-0
Mick Keeper............Old 22..............73-4-0
Peter Turnbull........Old 26..............56-5-0
Donald Garnish.......New 13............53-12-0
Jim Long..................Old 1...............52-8-0
Brian Wharton......Old 19...............47-4-0
John..........................Old 11.............45-0-0
Dave Pearson.........New 13............44-4-0
Harry Clements.....Old 5................23-8-0
Tony Plumbridge...New 8..............DNW

Sunday sees me back at Willinghurst for my usual Winter League series and I am really looking forward to seeing the usual crowd again.

Rolf's Lake / Monk Lakes

2009-09-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

With a Match Fishing Scene match at Rolfs on Saturday and a Leatherhead DAS club match on Lake 4 at Monks on sunday, it was a double header weekend for me ! Yippeeeee.

However, Rolfs unfortunately had a very off day and if you stare at this picture of my float for nearly 5 hours then you will get some idea of how my day went ! Despite having fish blowing on my 6 metre line all day, the only 4 carp I caught were down the edge to my left with one on paste and three on corn. My total weight of 37lb (from Peg 18) put me in 10th place out of the 23 fishing.

The highlight of my day was when Nick Merry hooked his first fish after about two hours (it turned out to be foul hooked) and when he lost the fish at the net he then entertained us with one of his best "Basil Fawlty Tantrums" as his top three was jetisoned up the bank !

I also fell for the lure of Jon Walker's floats yet again as despite having no intention of buying any, (as I have hundreds of floats at home) I could hear them "calling me" as I stood in the car park but luckily managed to escape with only buying five of them !

Result

Simon Mound 93-12-0 (See left)

Steve 0070 85-3-0

Slider 76-4-0

Paul Laws 75-12-0

Eels 65-0-0

Thanks to Ricky Baxter for the lift and Welshmagic (Gareth Boycott) for his pound !

Fortunately Sunday was another kettle of fish entirely. Having never fished Lake 4 at Monks before and not being able to find anyone who had - despite asking on numerous fishing forums, I decided from the little info I had, that I would fish paste out in front and hemp and meat down the margins. My 8 pint bait limit was therefore made up of:- 2 tins of meat, 2 pints of hemp and four pints of micro pellets, plus 2 kilos of paste.

The day started well when we visited the truckers cafe on the way there (Thanks Hathers for the directions) and we were only charged for a normal breakfast (£4.50) rather than the "Super" one we had (£6.25) which upset Spindle greatly as his breakfast looked like a little kiddies meal compared to ours !

Having never even seen the lake before, when I drew Peg 145 it meant nothing to me and when we arrived at the lake, all the pegs looked decent to me, although as we only had 21 anglers on a 30 peg lake, some had more room than others. Arriving at my Peg it looked ok with open water infront of me - between two islands (which I didn't want to fish to anyway) and with Simmons one side and Martin Jackson the other. As both Simmons and Plummers had taken my pound on the last club match at Willow Park and Martin had beaten me by a pound off the next peg, I was out for revenge !

I really didn't know what to expect and erred on the light side tackle wise when setting up, with 2 paste rigs on 0.16 line to black hydro and an edge rig to fish luncheon meat on 0.18 to yellow hollow elastic that has been in my edge pole a while and I still can't remember what it is !

I kicked off the match feeding a couple of pots of micro's on the paste lines and a couple of handfulls of hemp and meat down the edge to my right. By the time I'd fed all the lines Martin already had two fish in the net !

Everyone then had a mad hour catching on whatever they put on the hook on whatever method they tried before it started to slow down and the fish became a bit finicky. I worked out quite quickly that the rigs and elastic were too light and I switched to an 0.18 paste rig with a bigger float to get the bait down quicker and a lightly set red hydro. This meant that whilst the fish were really having it I could spend much less time playing them and I was catching 3 fish to Martin's 2. As the match progressed most people said they were struggling (except for Terry Harrison who was still catching one a bung on a method feeder to his island) but I found that by switching about types and size of paste, I could still keep a few fish coming and because I was fishing paste rather than pellett, I was catching carp rather than the smaller tench or skimmers.

Whilst most of my fish were caught on paste, I did probably have 10 or 11 fish on meat in the edge but it was very slow and after catching one you had to rest it for a while before you could get another bite. After a few recent matches where I have struggled for a bite, it was a pleasure to catch a load of fish and a most enjoyable day banter wise.

Having packed away I wandered round the lake to help weigh in my section and it sounded like I was going to struggle to frame as Plummers said he had a load of fish and reckoned that Jason Morgan at the next peg had beaten him. I knew Competition Secretary Peter Turnbull had caught well as had Spindle (no, we didn't believe it either) and Martin thought he was just infront of me as well !

First to weigh was Terry Harrison who reminded us why he fishes for Dorking by placing 128lb on the scales for a convincing win and as we continued round the lake everyone seemed to weigh between 40lb and 60lb until Peter Turnbull weighed 85-12-0 and Spindle pipped him with 86-0-0. Martin Jackson placed 59-0-0 on the scales and as we reached my peg, the board from the other section arrived. I was told that Plummers and Simmons had both had 60 odd pound and not really knowing what I had, I was a bit concerned about my pound coins !

However, I needn't have worried as my first net went 39lb odd and I knew I had more in the other one. Sure enough the other net went just over 46lb and when the two weights were added together it meant that I had tied with Spindle for second place with 86lb. So, not a bad day at all, a cheap breakfast, a decent days fishing in good company, I'd got revenge over Martin for my Willow Park next peg beating and had a pound off both Simmons and Plummers.......... what more could a man want ?

Wednesday sees us back at Willinghurst for the usual wednesday open then it's back again for the first round of my winter league on sunday. Hopefully I'll catch as many fish on those matches as I did Sunday !!!!!!!!

Newlands Hall

2009-09-17T23:18:00.001-07:00

Due to my lack of fishing last week, to make sure you all got your match fishing fix, I obtained the services of Paul Law as guest blogger as we watched him try and progress to the final of the "Fish for 3k" event. As Wednesday saw me back at Willinghurst and I only had 3 carp for 26lb (and two of them in the last 10 minutes), I've convinced Paul to continue with his reporting and here is his write up from the Essex bagging venue - Newlands Hall.

Before he starts, please note that despite only having 26lb on wednesday I did still take Plummers pound and now that the cooler weather has arrived and he wont catch on a tangerine sized piece of paste, I expect to take many more in the coming months !

I'm really looking forward to the weekend with a match at Rolf's Lake on saturday and a Leatherhead DAS club match on Lake 4 at Monk Lakes on Sunday - but in the meantime, here is Paul Law !

Further to my recent Fish for 3 k Qualifier, I now find myself in deepest Essex at Newlands Hall, it's a 4 lake complex well manicured just out side Chelmsford, with rave reviews and talk of crazy weights in excess of 400lbs this should be quite interesting............. or not.

The Kent massive have been replaced with the Wickford angling boys a tidy looking outfit very smart clothes etc a complete opposite to the hand made clothing spotted so readily at Monk lakes, but what an ugly lot that Wickford are, god help us if the Thames Gateway ever completes and that lot mix.

Today we have 2 of the 4 lakes Moat and Brook the word is if you don't draw on Moat go Home and believe it or not some did.

The Draw

After a brief chat with all and sundry its time for the draw I get in reasonably early today as with these weights we have to get a separate trolley of bait to the peg, I draw peg 20 on Brook, I ask around and try to get some info on my peg or the area, the word is grim, not being one that gets disheartened I load up the trolley and make tracks to my peg, I couldn’t have drawn any further from the van by the time I got to my peg I was dripping the 90 minutes we have to get set up as dwindled and with all the stops for breath and a chat I have 60 minutes to get ready.

On the way to my peg I have walked past quite a few anglers all of them looking glum including my travelling partner Steve Fisher he has drawn peg 6 it actually looks quite nice, also along the way I walk past an island and two spits the spits and the island are the pegs to be on, they just scream out fish, my peg on the other hand was awful in fact I would take a guess the last time it was fished was probably about the last time I was at Newlands around 1995, it was a parrot cage and wedged between two trees the only place I could get a box in was about 5 foot off the water, it was awful, the only way this was going to work was to get in the water, I asked if it was allowed and as nobody knew the answer I thought I'd play safe and sit up the bank.

The Methods

I was told we are on more of a specimen lake the fish run up to 30lb and there isn’t many fish compared to the more favourable Moat Lake and that the method and pellet waggler can play a big part in a weight if they feed, so I get out a ready made bomb rod and method rod and two pellet waggler rods all set up the night before. I clip up the lead rods and cast out one of the pellet waggs, the wind was awful and the waggler was going through as if I was on the tidal Thames, I stripped one of them down and replaced the waggler with a huge Drake bodied peacock which on hitting the water sat there motion less, perfect for the conditions. Now for a pole line, I wasn’t too confident that the pole would be right today add to this the fact I feel as if I'm pointing down at 45 degrees it felt wrong, I had a nice depth at around 7 ft so I hooked up one of my faithful 0.3 ackoo prototypes on a 0.17 to 0.17 and a 14 B911, I decided a few cups of pellet with a little corn and leave it for an hour while I have a look on the method.

The whistle goes.

I carry out the pre bait ritual and launch a method to the middle, with two bits of corn haired off a 16 B911, a few minutes goes past I recast, "nothing" after 15 minutes I switch to pellet and still nothing. I alternate baits and run through the motions "nothing" all the time I have been pinging 8mm pellets on a line about 25 to 30 yards out, so I switch to the bomb and drop it short onto my pellet line "nothing". An hour has gone and not a bite, I have been keeping a careful tag on what’s going on and have only seen John Coster on the other bank catch as he had a carp on the method. Do they really catch 400lb bags here? I decide to give it a shot on the pole, on goes a piece of corn the float dances around lifts and bobs it finally sinks and I'm rewarded with a dinky roach, I don't even know how it got the corn in its mouth !

I persevere with this for an hour taking odd casts on the method and just add 2 more tiny roach, we are now 2 hours into the match, the guys around me have caught nothing either other than a few small roach, I give the pellet waggler a shot and nothing. No wonder people drew and went home.

Halfway in I decide enough is enough this isn’t what I came here for I got off my box and went for a walk. The guy on the first spit has had a couple of small carp and walking further down to the low numbers Jonnie Bell is packing up on the other spit for the rest it is just odd carp. Steve Fisher on peg 6 has one about 8lb and a couple of pound of roach, I get to peg 4 Alec Roberts, well to my disbelief he tells me he has had 12 carp in the first 12 casts he lost 2 of them though and has maybe 50lb Alec has been on fire this year and really has been making the most from his pegs, on peg 3 is Barry Oliver he is also doing well and nicked a couple of lumps and lost a few breaking his pole on another, I walk to the corner of Moat Lake and people are catching not brilliantly but they are putting a few fish together.

I grab a cup of tea from the snax wagon and go back to my peg and when I get back I sit down and have a good look at what’s going on around, John Coster is now nicking the odd carp on the pellet waggler, the guy to my left now has 3 small carp and to my right just small fish
I see a few fish are starting to mooch about on the surface so I decide to give it all on the pellet waggler. After 30 minutes I get a sign as the pellets hit the water around my float the float makes a slight sideways movement, on the next retrieval I shallow up I feed cast and the float buries, I lift into it and to my disappointment the fish flies off like the Orient Express nothing is stopping this, I knew immediately it was fouled, but the clutch and rod does its job the fish surfaces 3/4 of the way across the lake and slowly starts to come back, at one point it even tears through the peg next door and gives him a cracking liner and then he realises its me. after a long battle its in the net its a double a cracking fluke hooked right in the tail.

I now have a little hope, and this really wakes me up and my aim now is to beat everyone to my right all the way around to John Coster, I persevere with this method but no more bites or signs, John opposite is still nicking fish its almost like the fish wont come our side of middle so I switch tact, I get a 3 pint tub of 11mm out of the bag, 11mm pellets in this wind are great they hit the water like stones and im sure when the fish are coming to noise these can sometimes change things around, within a few minutes I get the rod wrenched from my hand, after a good 10 minute battle I have another 10lb plus fish in the net, by now everyone around me is wacking out pellets and fishing the waggler, I get two more bites and 1 more fish a cracking immaculate mirror around 9lb and the whistle goes.

I sit there and reflect on what could have been with a little more homework and 5 hours of pellet waggler I believe a different outcome would have been on the cards for me, decisions are what cost us in this sport, I made a few bad ones today based on lack of knowledge for this place, The long waggler for stability was the right choice along with bigger pellets, I went on to weigh 29lb 8oz second in the section by 3lb and to the flier on the spit, 10lb was weighed to my left and just ounces all the way around to John Coster.

Alec Roberts went on to win in real style and mostly in the first hour while John Coster nicked second with a very steady performance.

To Summarise, I’m not sure what happened to the huge weights as predicted but the lakes certainly didn’t like having 60 anglers throwing bait in on the day

The results are as follows

Alec Roberts........ peg 4 ........90lb 2oz
John Coster.......... peg 32........ 65lb
Mike Evens ...............................62lb
John Southgate .....................59lb 2oz
Jason Collins ..........................58lb 8oz
Barry Oliver........ Peg 3 ........53lb 4oz

The next one for me is Tylers Common in a few weeks

Paul Law

Monk Lakes - Lakes 1 and 2

2009-09-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

With me being on holiday with Mrs Pikey, there was no fishing for me last wednesday as we spent the day in Brighton (as you can see from the picture) !!!! I therefore obtained the services of Paul Law (also known as Justin Case on the Match Fishing Scene and Total Fishing.Com websites) as a guest blogger, and the following is a report of his efforts to win the "Fish for 3K" qualifier at Monk Lakes.

Having fished round 2 at the same venue a week prior and having such a good result I was very eager to get the venue, I was out side my garage with my kit at 6am waiting for my travelling partner Steve Fisher, after a few minutes he turned up we loaded up and set off from My base at Waltham Abbey and headed towards Nells café on the A2, and all the way wondering if the Dartford crossing was going to be nice to us today, indeed it was and we made good time and was at the café waiting for it to open.

I have been quite lucky at Monk’s having won lake 1 on the last 2 matches and a 3rd on the one prior I was brimming with confidence. My only requirement was a draw on the much better lake 2. I have prepared quite well for this one, making plenty of duplicate rigs the day before, checked and adjusted all my elastics and prepared all my bait to great detail, the only thing I had to do was tie some hooks which I did all the way to the venue.

Now there are strict bait limits and Monks its essential the right choice is made, I’m not convinced this is a one method venue so I tend to use a variety of bait and try to cover all bases, My recent visits have seen me use ground bait more and more and my intentions today were to ball it in at 5 metres unless I drew peg 45,46,56,67 or 77 and fish micro pellet and corn in the margins, both methods have been working well with my style of fishing and the only difference with pegs mentioned above is I will take the 5 pints of red maggots with me and leave the bulk of the pellets on the van.

On arrival at the car park I noticed Matt Love and Nick Gilbert and went over to say hello, you cant miss Matt as well as being quite tall he was wearing his regular santa outfit, why is it the guys from MfS have strange fishing attire ? I said hello to Hathers and noticed he was wearing a pair of shorts that looked as if he had just cut them down with a pair of worm sheers, I felt seriously under dressed in a pair of work jeans, and wasn't sure I had made enough effort.

Most seem to be hoping for a lake 2 draw, the field today is quite strong and quite a few well known anglers, and a few tidy local anglers to boot, I have a good chat with Dave Vincent and after a while I summoned up to take all the names and do the peg entries for John Bell.
I love nothing more than a good laugh and a windup so every one that drew on my half of the match as they came to me to log there names I asked each and every one of them their name, “the looks I got from the superstars” I could almost hear the words “don’t you know who I am” I love it I just grin and carry on.

John Bell offered me a draw right at the off as I was helping and I declined I like to have what ever is left, as the draw comes to an end its my turn, there are 6 envelopes left I look at my board and only peg 30 on Lake 1 is left I have a 6 to 1 chance of a lake 2 draw so in I go, Peg 73 I'm middle of the lake 2 spit facing the un pegged bank I’m more than happy with that, For bait I decide on the full 2 kilo of ground bait, 3 pints of micros 2 pints of maggots 1 pint of corn and 2 pints of 4mm to make up the 8 pints.

The peg is quite deep compared to the lake 1 pegs I have fished, around 6 ft at 5 metres ideal for my balling in approach, I set up 6 rigs my main bagging rigs which are 2 x 0.4 Ackoo prototype body down floats set on a short line these are identical with a stung bulk of number 9 stotz with a couple of number 11 droppers, a 0.6 Wilkie pellet with an olivette in case the fish are really going to town 2 margin rigs and a top 3 to hand with an Ackoo pellet stix this is a 0.3 with number 11 stotz strung throughout the depth. All rigs are on black hydro with the exception of the margins they have Orange Wilkie. lines are .17 to .17 for the margin and .15 to .15 for the rest, people often ask me why do I do this well its very rare for the line to break anywhere other than the knot, it gives me that little extra control in the wind having a thinner line above the water and today was windy.

Im ready to roll and only a few minutes remains to the whistle, the plan is 7 babies heads at 5 metres and two shorter that I can reach with the 3 to hand rig this line I will also trickle maggots over the top, I will put a 250mm pot of micros and corn down both margins. I add a large handful of corn some loosely chopped worms and a pint of micros to the ground bait and proceed to make up the bombs.

The whistle goes and I hold back for a minute and just watch what everyone else is doing, most around me seem to be going down the paste route, no one has fed long
So in we go, Balling in always gets funny looks I always stand to throw my ground bait and as I do, I look around, you can see what people are thinking for 30 seconds I feel like a solitary Millwall fan at the Hammers ground. But this match is about 2 people, only 2 will qualify for the final which is at Lake John and at the end of my road. There is no point in doing what everyone else is doing.

In we go with the float and a piece of corn, then again and again and again a pattern is emerging 20 minutes has past and I haven’t had a bite, I try maggots and still nothing., I’m starting to get the feeling that I have made a grave error but in looking around no one is really putting anything together, then the float dips not a good bite just a dig, instinct takes over I strike and have a carp on, 10 seconds later its slipped the hook, this happens two or three more times and then I land one a nice plump 4 pounder in the office. Bites were hard to come by and all the time I had been dripping maggots on the 3 to hand line and I spotted a swirl, I put 3 maggots on the 3 to hand rig cast out and the float just carries on under, I’m rewarded with a cracking Ide around 2lb I go on to land 4 more of these and a few chub, I m not doing brilliant by any stretch of the imagination and certainly below par for Monk standards sadly after about an hour. These fish died off.

We are now halfway in and I have about 20lb I cant get bites the only bites im getting is on a worm that I have to drag around the peg and every now and then a fish will grab hold, so I decide to get a feeder rods out of the ready made bag, as I’m getting this out Hathers asks how I’m doing and I replied no good he came back with a similar comment. I take a good look around 45 to 48 are bagging the end two pegs on the spit are catching and the guy in what looks like peg 77 is also catching. Pretty much to form. I also see Dave Vincent net a fish from peg 44 on lake 1.
I chuck out the feeder with a banded 8mm pellet as soon as it hits the bottom the rod is wrenched from the net, I land a carp around 4lb, I eagerly recast and get the same
I’m now thinking here we go, sadly 1 more bite was all that could be mustered,

1.5 hours to go and what do I do the margins are dead 3 to hand and the 5 metre line are the same, I cant win anything but want to catch a few fish for my troubles, so I use one of the 5 metres rigs and plumb up at 11metres I had noticed the guys either side had nicked a few carp on the paste fishing long. To my surprise the depth was exact of that at 5metres I put a very small pot of micros at 11 metres and dropped a soft hooker over it, after a while I started to nick a few fish a few F1’s followed by a couple of carp and chub then the elastic ripped out and a good barbel was in the office this continued for about 40 minutes and also died off, all that was willing to grace the net after that were 3 and 4 inch skimmers, those skimmers that wouldn’t usually get a look in.

The whistle finally blew, It was a very strange day today the carp didn’t show in any real numbers I was probably 40% of my target weight, a quick glance at the clicker showed 54lb I would be well under that as I tend to be a little generous due to the strict net limits.

I packed my kit away, A steady flood of people back to their cars confirmed it had fished hard most on the spit had left without weighing the two pegs on the end and 77 had caught ok and were sure to take the section there would be no envelopes for me today so I had a good look and tipped back, On my way back to the van I had a chat with Dave Vincent who was on peg 44 the peg I was fortunate enough to draw on last weeks qualifier, he had over a ton but would be last to weigh going on the way in which lake two had fished he was certainly in with a shout, and that proved to be correct as the results below show.

Dave Vincent......Peg 44....136lb 2oz

Robbie Taylor.....Peg 45....131lb 12oz

Dave Sandford.....Peg 68....112lb 8oz

Russ Berryman.........112lb 4oz

Graham Dack......Peg 48.....110lb 4oz

Ben Emery......Peg 77.......102lb
Steve Copping..Peg 46.......100lb 9oz

The results were pretty much to form for when the carp at this venue sulk, well done to John Bell for having the determination to kick of the south’s very own fishomania.

And well done to Dave Vincent I would like to think my info from last weeks qualifier helped him on his way.

Returning to match fishing after so long has filled a huge gap, the people the competitiveness you cant beat it. Roll on next Wednesdays qualifier at Newlands Hall

Paul Law

Willow Park - Small Lake

2009-09-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

There are a number of matches that I really really look forward to each year and the Leatherhead DAS matches on the Small Lake at Willow Park are always a couple of them. I've always loved the place and with it responding to paste in the summer, I have often picked up money there with weights between 60 and 80lb. Hopefully, this time would be no exception and despite the cooler weather when I drew Peg 9 outside the cafe I was more than happy - although to be honest with only 17 anglers on the lake, we all had plenty of room.

For company I had Smiffy (Mark Smith) on Peg 7 and following last years titanic battle where we went fish for fish for most of the match on Pegs 13 and 14 before I finished 6lb in front with 66lb, I was again looking forward to a decent contest and quickly struck up a pound side bet to add to the ones I already had with Plummers and Simmons.

To cut a long story short, I fished like a complete Muppett catching 1 carp (foul hooked in the tail), 2 F1's, 3 skimmers and a roach, either on paste at 12.5 metres on a bar that runs across the peg or in the edge on corn. Smiffy caught mainly F1's throughout the day on pellett on the same bar - but he had to fish 16 metres to reach it from his peg.

I've never known it fish as badly on paste and although I wasn't catching early on, I still expected it to suddenly leap into life at any stage but it just never happened. There was a full moon the night before so maybe that was the reason.

Anyway, as we entered the last hour Smiffy was still catching on 6mm expander on the bottom, Pete Turnbull was bagging up On Peg 14 (the peg that has won our last two matches at Willow) and Plummers was catching in Peg 18 - where he had a lovely edge peg and the wind blowing into it. I was now bagging as well, with two skimmers down the edge !

It wasn't until we weighed in that I realised how hard our side of the lake had fished with Haydon Woods on Peg 1 weighing 20-8-0, as did John Clifford on Peg 4, Jason the Tapper had 19-10-0, I had 19-11-0 and Martin Jackson 19-12-0 the other side of me. Only Smiffy really caught on our side as his 51-0-0 was enough for third place behind Peter Turnbull - 62lb and Plummers with 54lb.

My pound side bets didn't go too well either as even Simmons started to catch in the last hour or so and weighed in 31lb so I ended up with a resounding 3-0 defeat. And the victorious three can be seen above celebrating their victories !

I'm off this week on holiday with Mrs Pikey so have no fishing on Wednesday or next sunday ! I will therefore be seeking a couple of guest bloggers to make sure you don't miss out on your fishing fix for the week.

The Glebe / Willinghurst

2009-09-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well what a weekend that was, It started very early on Friday morning when Hathers picked me up at 5am in his religious shorts (very Holey) and we started the long drive to Leicester for the Match Fishing Scene two day event at the Glebe, where thanks to Roy Marlow and the MFS chaps we donated £500 from the day ticket money to Rainbow Trust Children's Charity and I can be seen here receiveing a cheque from Club treasurer BNF and co-organisors Scone and Jads. Don't you think we'd make a good tug of war team !!!!

Anyway, After a brief stop at the Truckers Cafe on the A5 for a breakfast that even I struggled to finish, we arrived at The Glebe at just after 8am to find that the weather “Up North” is not only colder but also a lot windier that the tropical south we had left just a few hours earlier. Fortunately for me I had drawn one of the more sheltered "little lakes" (there were waves on Lake 1) and as I approached the Lake 6 draw bag my thoughts were firmly focussed on picking out Peg 86 (known as “The Little Girls Peg” because it is so good !). Unfortunately Graham Avery got there first and although I had to settle for Peg 87 I was still quite happy. All the talk in the previous weeks had been about starting on the feeder on all the lakes but I had already decided that my approach for both days was just going to be pole at 6 metres ish and in the edge, depending on where I drew.

As we tackled up we were hit by a short sharp rain (but nearly hail) shower and this turned out to be the pattern for the day as every 20 minutes or so we seemed to get another dousing. I set up two rigs, one to fish paste at 6 metres and one to fish in the edge where after a bit of gardening that Alan Titchmarsh would have been proud of, I had a lovely looking edge peg which just screamed fish. After 3 hours I was regretting the fact that I had left my feeder rod at home in sunny Fetcham as I’d had one small carp and a skimmer whilst Graham on Peg 86 was nicking the odd fish on the feeder and a few in the edge as well just to rub it in. A quick wander a long the bank to check how my Pound bet with Animal was doing revealed that I wasn’t too far behind the others in the section.

The second half of the match proved slightly better as I started to get a few fish on the paste line but the superb looking edge peg was still barren despite constant feeding with copious amounts of hemp and corn. It wasn’t until 15 minutes from the end that I had my first sign of a fish in the edge and then had two lumps in the last 10 minutes, one of which I was still playing on the whistle. Although the lake hadn’t fished well by Glebe standards, our section proved to be quite tight with Fishy 007 winning with 67lb, followed by Graham with 56lb and me with 52lb whilst the others all had weights in the 40’s, including Animal who I duffed up by about 7lb – Thanks for the pound mate !

After Day 1’s match we all went back to the marquee to pay out the section money and draw for Day 2. This time I was on Lake 1 in the section with Pegs 25-30. I’d never drawn the end peg on Lake 1 before and knowing that it was a flier (or could be – I don’t think a lot was caught off it on the Friday) in went the hand, a quick rummage around and out came……………..Peg 30 !!!! To make things even better, I had Sconeeee a the next peg and as I knew he wouldn’t be on the Perrier water with a bed time of 10 o’clock, I quite fancied my chances of giving him a right tuning, despite him being the new local ace !

Friday night was as usual a good laugh (especially Animal on the Karaoke) but at 11.30 after copious amounts of alcohol (well alright 4 Bacardi and cokes and a bottle of Magners) me and Hathers sneaked back to the travel lodge as Graham A had offered us a free “Taxi “ ride and we had been up since 4am !

Next morning me and Hathers made our way to Morrison’s for breakfast before he dropped me at my peg and it really seemed odd not meeting everyone before the match for a draw. I ‘d spoken to a few people who gave me some ideas about where to fish the peg but when I sat and looked at it, the line by the big pipe to the right that you can fish to was a no no as about three million gallons of yesterdays rain water seemed to be spewing out of it ! Just as I was about to start tackling up I heard a noise the other side of the tree to my left and shouted “Is that my neighbour arriving ?” The reply I received was just what you would expect from a short, fat, bald bloke who had not gone to bed until 3.30am and spent the previous night trying to drink Leicestershire dry ! He then spent the rest of the day burping and saying “I was nearly sick then” !!!

Anyway after whinging that he wouldn’t be tackled up on time cos he still had to deliver the scales and boards, I volunteered to sort them out with him and within 20 minutes we were back at our pegs.

Luckily on my travels with the scales I had bumped in to Holwell who I think fishes the Glebe a bit and he told me that on my peg they fish long to the rushes on the end bank – and despite still being quite windy, I decided that this would be my main line of attack, feeding corn and hemp.
I did also fish a couple of lines in the margins but didn't catch on either.

I started the match slowly with a few small "Buddy" carp (as Sconee calls them) in the first half hour or so but as the match progressed the fish got bigger and a pattern developed where you would catch a few fish then they would disappear for a while before returning for you to catch another couple. Before the match me and Sconneeee had gone over to the "Eco Pool" to the right of my peg and when he threw in about 4 pints of pellets they disappeared within minutes as the fish ate the lot. I think it showed how much you can feed when carp are in the mood, and in hindsight I feel I should have fed more.

In the last hour I started to catch really well and courtesy of Zinky's camera, can be seen here playing another fish - For those who often suggest I never fish further than six metres, please note the writing on the butt sections of my pole ! As the match finished, Sconee and I grabbed the scales and made our way round to Peg 1 to begin weighing in.

Top weight up to our section was about 78lb then Fishy007 placed 112lb on the scales to win the lake (again - well done mate) and apparently added 60lb of that in the last half hour !

Sconee then weighed 32lb - yes,that was all, not good from the local ace especially as Herbie beat him to his left so when I weighed 97lb it meant he had been proper "Harry Ramsdened" - battered both sides !

So, despite the weather I'd had a brilliant couple of days at a superb fishery in the company of some good mates - roll on next year.

Sunday saw me back at Willinghurst for my Annual Rainbow Trust Children's Charity match.
Due to a problem with fitting in people to fish in the teams of 4, I had opted not to fish but having just been away for 2 days, I wasn't actually that worried and it did give me time to not only sort out all the money and raffle prizes but also wander around and take the Pxss out of loads of anglers !!!!!

Thanks to everyone who helped raise nearly £2,000 through sponsorship and the raffle. Ross won the match from Old Lake Peg 22 with 122lb on the method feeder. A big Thank you should also go to all the money winners who very kindly donated a percentage of their winnings to the Charity - Yes I know that some needed a bit of persuasion, especially Woody who I thought was actually going to cry !

Must go as I am off to Willow Park now for a Leatherhead DAS club match and will report back later.

Willinghurst - Pittance and Old Lakes

2009-08-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry the blogging has been a bit late recently, I 've been a bit tied up looking for a job and sorting out my Charity Match ! Whilst on the subject of the match, it's on Sunday 30th August at Willinghurst and I still have a couple of places available for what should be a brilliant day - I don't think I have laughed so much as I did at last years match. If anyone is interested in fishing then email me at Pikeyp@btinternet.com.

Last Sunday with no club match, we hastily organised a 15 peg sweep at Willinghurst with 10 pegs on Pittance and 5 on the far bank of Old Lake. Having drawn Pittance 14 I nearly ran there as Ross had won the club match there the previous sunday with 168lb fishing paste at about 6 metres - sounds like heaven doesn't it !

I started the match fishing paste at about 7 metres and had a fish of about 8lb after about 30 seconds, then another smaller one next put in ! Bloody hell I thought, if Ross could catch 168lb then at this rate I'd probably have 200lb+ . Well my Old saying that "Fish have fins and do sometimes swim about" was never truer as for the next three hours I never had a bite. The wind was very strong and made fishing paste quite hard but by switching around lines etc I thougth I'd at least catch the odd fish. Hayden Woods was next to me on Peg 13 and was catching the odd fish on the Method to the island and Ian Summers seemed to be bagging on Peg 16 on a short rod and pellett but for everyone else it was a bit slow.

Pittance is usually one of the best "Edge Peg" lakes on the complex but with the water being down 10 inches or so, I 'd fed a line probably a yard out from the rushes in about 2 foot of water and with 2 hours to go had my first fish from that line fishing double corn over hemp / corn feed.
Me and Hayden then had a very silly hour or so as he had been wearing a hat that looked like the ones worn by "Bill and Ben - The Flowerpot men". We therefore decided that rather than keep watching each other to see who was catching, every time he hooked a fish he'd shout "Weeeeeeeeed" and every time I hooked one I'd shout "ffflllloooobbbbbaaalob". We both had a very busy hour catching and I think Alan Harrington who was the other side of a bush to Hayden's right was getting a little fed up after a while !

Despite fishing quite hard there were some decent weights on the lake with Ian Summers weighing 119lb followed by me with 92lb, Alan Harrington with 81lb and Pete Turnbull and Hayden with 74lb and 72lb respectively but we couldn't compete with Old lake which fished well again.

Pound Watch

Simmons returned after a break for house moving but refused my offer of a pound side bet despite drawing the best peg on the lake. My regular donation of a pound to Plummers continued as he can do no wrong at the moment.

Result

Jason Morgan.............Old 24......................172-8-0
Tony Plumbridge.......Old 18......................161-14-0
Ian Summers..............Pittance 16..............119-0-0
Dave Pearson..............Pittance 14...............92-2-0
Ross Nursey.................Old 22.....................88-12-0
Alan Harrington.........Pittance 12...............81-4-0
Peter Turnbull...........Pittance 3.................74-8-0
Hayden Woods...........Pittance 13...............72-0-0
Jeff Simmons.............Pittance 5..................71-12-0

Wednesday sees me back at Willinghurst for the usual "Old Gits, unemployed and General Layabouts match" then on friday it's off to the Glebe with a load of Match Fishing Scene anglers for two days then sunday it's my Rainbow Trust Charity Match at Willinghurst. So, a very busy week ahead but one I am really looking forward to. Come back next week to see if I'm disappointed - and don't forget if you want to fish the Charity Match then email me at Pikeyp@btinterent.com, you might even get yourself a mention in Pikey's Progress !

Long Copse Ponds and Willinghurst.

2009-08-18T00:52:00.000-07:00

Saturday saw me fishing the Leatherhead DAS "Top Pond Championships" at the club ponds that are 150 yards from my house. The "Match" is usually attended by a motley crew of committee members and bailiffs but as this year they had moved it to a saturday (therefore not clashing with any other matches) I thought I'd give it a go as after all, I am a Vice President of the club !

To be honest I did feel a bit guilty fishing as most of the other 15 anglers fishing weren't match anglers but at least I didn't go in the pools. As I only live round the corner I thought I'd pop down on my bike, have a draw and then depending on where I drew I could then walk back with the required tackle. Having walked round the lake whilst Eric was sorting out the draw numbers I fancied drawing Pegs 1-9 or 16 but especially fancied 1,5,9 or 16. When I opened the little folded up piece of paper I couldn't believe it as staring me in the face was a little Number..........5, one of my favourite pegs on the lake and one I'd won a club match from last winter with 70lb+.

I then peddled off home to return with my box to sit on, my margin pole, a few nets and a big bag of paste !

Although the peg wasn't as easy to fish as in winter as the rushes grow out too far and you can't really fish over them, I caught on and off for most of the match, carp between 1 and 3lb and was even being reunited with an old friend (see above) which I also caught last winter from the next peg along. The match ended at 5pm and it looked like the only other angler to catch well was Jack DeAlmeida opposite me and when we weighed in he recorded a weight of 45lb. When we reached my peg I placed my fish on the scales and the needle swung round the dial to finally settle on 38lb. The watching gallery started to move off along with a very excited Jack until I pulled out the second net (which nobody noticed I had) with another 40lb in it !

Feeling a little embarrassed to have invaded their competition I thought it better to let them award the trophy to Jack and reminded them to move it back to a Sunday next year. Following the match they had laid on a superb little barbeque and a few drinks etc - all in all a most enjoyable day.

Sunday saw me back at Willinghurst for the club match on Pittance and Horseshoe Lakes. Pittance looked like the place to draw following recent results there so I therefore wasn't too happy when as I was helping out with the draw Plummers drew for me and picked me Horseshoe 16. There were two other pegs in the bag at the time and the two others both won their lakes ! Thanks Tone !!!!

I started to catch a few F1's on paste but 7 hours later only weighed in 12 F1's and two carp for a total weight of 41-6-0 only beating about 4 other anglers on the lake. I htink I messed up by fishing paste in the edge as the roach were bashing it to bits all day and I now think I should have fished hemp and corn. Despite losing a carp he estimated at 20lb+ Peter Turnbull won our lake with 74lb followed by Plummers (yes that cost me another pound) with 69lb .

Pittance fished much better with Ross catching all day on paste at about 6 metres or so from Peg 14 - why don't I get days when I can catch that close, to finish well clear with 168lb with Jason Morgan second on 108lb from Peg 5. I think there were another couple of 100lb+ bags as well.

Come back Thursday to see how Wednesday'sopen match goes and if I can stop Plummers winning streak.

Willinghurst - Wednesday 12th August

2009-08-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

I had one of those matches on wednesday when I got so frustrated that I had to keep telling myself that I match fish for fun and there are far more important things happening in the world than me framing in a match.

With only two pegs left in the draw bag, I couldn't believe that my "Usual Peg", Peg 8 on New was still in there but I then managed to draw the other one leaving "My" peg to Ross. My location for the match was therefore Peg 7 on Old Lake, a peg I didn't mind but not one with any recent form. My usual revue of the draw sheet showed that Tony Yianni was likely to be the match winner as he'd drawn Peg 19 on Old Lake which was the same peg that he had 205lb two weeks ago and I was also going to struggle to win a pound off Plummers as he had drawn Peg 13 on New lake where Ross won from a couple of weeks ago with 140lb.

I won't give a full report of my match but it went something like this:-

I started reasonably well with a couple of carp and a 4lb bream but then the wind started to get up and despite having Brian Wharton as a wind break on Peg 1 the wind was hitting the lake in my peg and making it very difficult to fish paste. Tony Yianni had already started to catch on the method feeder and his squeeky reel was already starting to annoy me !

Time for a walk !

Back at my peg I caught a few more carp when the wind eased and Yianni was now catching even faster...........squeek,squeek, squeek ! I spent the next few hours switching between 6 and 12 metres nicking the odd fish but always had the feeling that if it wasn't for the wind then I could have had a decent weight. Walk number two was a bit longer and took in both lakes ! Plummers was now bagging and as I reached his peg he told me to look down the edge where he had been flicking bait and there was a big brown cloud where the carp had been stiring up the margin - I was very pleased for him !!!!!

Having passed a number of anglers who were all having varying levels of success I arrived at Alan Harrington's peg. I knew he had been bagging on paste and couldn't believe what I saw as he put his paste on the hook shipped it out keeping the paste clear of the water and lowered it in. A minute later the float disappeared and he soon had another 6lber in the net. In all the time I've fished paste I've never used a mix that I could use without a paste cup and always considered it wrong to use anything harder on the pole - just goes to show you that there is sometimes no right and wrong way to fish a method doesn't it.

Suprisingly as I passed Tony Yianni he was just netting a fish (see left) as was Donald Garnish as I went passed his Peg in the corner. Arriving back at my peg I now had 2 hours left to try and propel myself up the leaderboard and decided to try and catch at 6 metres as it was a lot easier to fish there in the wind. When I had 7 or 8 fish in the next hour I was just beginning to think that I might at least nick the section when the peg slowed considerably and I only had another 2 fish in the last hour.

Paul had very kindly dropped off the scales at my peg so on the whistle I packed up quickly and made my way round the lake - with the help of Jason Morgan who had come down after work to help out with the weigh in. Thanks Mate. With the weights recorded, I'm just glad that I did the board and Jason actually did the weighing !

Pound Watch

There's no stopping Plummers at the moment as he followed his win on Sunday with a second place and my pound for the third match in a row - I'm not allowed to mention that he draws better than Rolf Harris as it will probably sound like sour grapes........and it is !

Result

Tony Yianni...................Old 19......................277-14-0

Tony Plumbridge.........New 13.....................146-14-0

Alan Harrington...........Old 24......................136-3-0

Donald Garnish.............Old 11......................122-8-0

Peter Turnbull..............New 10....................103-15-0

Mick Keeper.................New 6........................101-2-0

Ross Nursey.................New 8..........................93-2-0

Dave Pearson................Old 7..........................91-10-0

Jim Long .......................New 5 ......................78-6-0

John Clifford..................Old 26......................68-6-0

Brian Wharton..............Old 1.........................67-8-0

Jeff Dickinson................New 3.......................50-0-0

Marcus Page.................Old 5.........................DNW

So, all in all a very frustrating day for me due to the wind, especially as most of the other pegs on the lake were flat calm but a decent set of weights none the less. Saturday sees me competing in the Leatherhead DAS "Top Pond Championship" at the ponds round the corner from my house and sunday we are back at Willinghurst for a club match on Pittance and Horseshoe Lakes - keep your fingers crossed for me that I draw on Pittance please !

Ross also found a new way to dry his nets out !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't forget you can sponsor me for my "Fish for Rainbow" match at http://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Pearson/

Willow Park - Small Lake

2009-08-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've always loved fishing the Small Lake at Willow Park although I missed the years when it was stuffed with tench, when I started fishing it I used to catch skimmers and my favourite fish - crucian carp, by feeding small balls of caster laced GB with 4mm cubes of luncheon meat on the hook with a light rig dotted down to a dimple.

The addition of a load of F1's and the discovery that they loved paste made it an even more enjoyable place for me and over the past few years I have had some really good results there and despite the lack of crucians now I always enjoy my visits.

I was so looking forward to the match that I even tied 5 rigs in the preceeding days and the evening before made my favourite Willow Park paste (see right for ingredients) and mixed my 1 kilo allowance of Green Swim Stim groundbait which in the past I have found to be the key to success. I was however a little apprehensive as with a saturday match being held on the lake I popped over to see the last hour and most were really struggling on a bright and sunny windless day. Although Dan Cooper won with 50-8-0, his grandad Nobby only needed 36-6-0 for second and top anglers like Paul Hiller and Paul Holland only had 20lb odd.

Sunday morning arrived and fortunately we'd had a couple of drop outs and only had 18 fishing - which is about right for the size of the lake, although you still needed a decent draw. When going through the pegs earlier in the week I fancied 1,5,7,9,14,16,18,26,27 and 28. So with a 50/50 chance of drawing a swim I fancied, in went the hand and out came..........PEG 4. Although not a peg I really wanted I did have a lot of room and I still thought I could win from it.

Despite what the regular "TopMatch anglers" say, Small Willow is for me an out and out Paste water and although you can sometimes catch short at 6 or 7 metres, you do sometimes have to be prepared to fish long if the carp and F1's wont come in on the shorter line.

I set up four rigs, two margin rigs to fish both right and left, one 8 metre paste rig to fish at 11 o'clock and one to fish long (12 metres) at 2 o'clock. I cupped in some hemp on all 4 lines at the start and started on the shorter paste line, feeding a small hard ball of GB every put in as this usually brings the carp rushing to your peg. However, this time it didn't and I struggled for a fish on that line. Hayden Woods on Peg 5 had dropped his paste in as the whistle had gone and caught a fish of 9-9-0 within seconds (seen here playing it), not a bad start when all the venue regulars said 40lb would be a good weight. With only a small skimmer to show for my efforts, I switched to the longer paste line where a few fish were blowing and in the next hour caught two small carp.

After a couple of hours I was still struggling despite rotating all the different lines and having a swim full of tiny skimmers which were blowing like mad on my longer paste line. I then decided to try something new and started up a new paste line at 14.5 metres straight out in front of me.

I decided not to feed anything at all to start with and to just let the paste coming off the hook to feed the peg and within a couple of minutes the fish were blowing over that line too, but these were carp and not skimmers and I soon started to catch a fish or two.

I then had one of the most frustrating couple of hours fishing that I have ever had. It's never easy fishing paste at 14.5 metres and it wasn't until I'd done it for about an hour that I suddenly thought "Why am I sitting here fishing my Power Legion pole" which isn't nice at that length when I had my G10 in my rod holdall ? So I switched over as all the tops fit both poles - and it was all a lot easier ! I still had a frustrating time though as there were loads of fish in the peg and I'd ship all the way out and they'd knock the paste off the hook without giving a proper bite or the line would loop round the float tip (despite having a float rubber on the bristle) and I'd have to ship all the way back again ! AAARRRGGGGHHHH ! I could feel myself getting more and more wound up and now realise the key is to just slow everything down, it's not race and you just need to make every bite count and you'd have a decent weight.

We are back on the same lake in 2 weeks time so hopefully the lessons I learnt will stand me in good stead. I only had 4 fish in the last hour when others were catching well and just felt that I had wasted an opportunity to win. I did however catch 63-2-0, which if you'd offered me that from Peg 4 at the start I'd have settled for that.

Pound Watch

Plummers made it two wins in a row and took my hard earned cash again although not wishing to give him too much credit, he did draw Peg 14 where I won from last time we fishied it ! Well done mate - Just think how much you'll catch when you start using some proper paste instead of that muck you had in your bait bucket on sunday !

Result

Tony Plumbridge.................Peg 14...................82-0-0

Ross Nursey..........................Peg 28..................69-0-0

Dave Pearson.......................Peg 4.....................63-2-0

John Swann..........................Peg 16...................62-0-0

Brian Wharton.....................Peg 26...................60-2-0

Peter Turnbull.....................Peg 9.....................52-0-0

Donald Garnish.....................Peg 11..................42-14-0

Reg The Edge.......................Peg 20..................42-12-0

Hayden Woods.....................Peg 5.....................41-9-0

So,all in all a most enjoyable day for most and I can't wait to get back in a couple of weeks.

Wednesday see me back at Willinghurst for the usual "Old Boys, unemployed and General Skivers" Match. Come back Thursday to see how it fished.

Willinghurst Old and New Lakes

2009-08-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

Before I publish my Wednesday blog, I am running a match later this month to help raise funds for Rainbow Trust Children's Charity who support families with terminally ill children.

If anyone who has read these blogs over the years would like to sponsor me then you can do it on line at http://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Pearson/ or email me at Pikeyp@btinternet.com.

If all the regular readers donated £1 then we'd raise loads of money.

Anyway, how did the fishing go ?

Well, I didn't need to take a picture of my peg for the blog as I drew Peg 8 on New Lake again !

Looking at the draw sheet it was clear that with Plummers drawing Peg 1 on Old Lake (where I had 147lb last week) that I was going to have to battle for my £1 and other likely challengers for the frame positions looked like being Mick "Wicket" Keeper who drew Peg 26 for the third time in recent weeks and Pete Turnbull on Old 19 who has just retired and is a welcome addition to the Wednesday Club. Woody also looked a danger on New 6 but thankfully God (Steve Gardener) had drawn New 1 and I really didn't like the look of that !

Although I had 89lb last time I drew Peg 8 a few weeks ago, it didn't look quite so good this time, the wind was different and there just didn't seem to be as many fish in the area. You are a bit limited with ways to fish in the peg by the big tree in the water which hems you in a bit so I just decided to fish as I did last time - Paste at the end of the tree, an inside line with hemp and corn in the very shallow water and a line at 13 metres along the bank by some posts. Last time I fished meat and hemp long but decided to try and fish paste there instead - it's not much fun fishing paste at that distance, especially with my Power Legion pole but thought it might cut down on the number of roach bites.

After my first couple of put ins by the bush the fish were soon fizzing but I couldn't get a proper bite. What I've found really odd lately is that some matches if the fish are fizzing in the peg you can really bag up yet on other occasions you can't get a bite - I expect it has something to do with the depth of silt but if anyone knows otherwise then please let me know. In my last three matches on Old Lake, Pittance and Stub Pond I have had over 150lb each time and on all three occasions the fish were blowing and I was getting loads of bites.

With the weather being really muggy and a full moon the previous night (I really must check out this Moonstrike stuff) the fishing was very slow and after 90 minutes I only had three carp in the net, two from by the bush and one long but as only Plummers seemed to be catching (he'd had about 7 fish), I was still in with a chance.

As the match entered the afternoon section I started to put a few fish together from along the bank but every time I thought I was going to bag up, the fish moved away and I had to sit and wait for them to return. I also had a bit of a frustrating spell where I lost a few foul hookers and a couple of fish which I think were in the mouth and with the lakes not fishing that well I had a horrible feeling that any lost fish or missed bites could well be expensive.

The last hour or so proved to be exciting again as Plummers had stopped catching and I started to get a few bigger fish - this always gets him going as I usually chip in with the odd "This ones huge Tone" or "This ones more like a small whale" just to put a bit more pressure on him !

Anyway, with about a minute remaining of the match I hooked a decent carp managed to coax it into the net really quickly and was soon shipping out my paste at a rate of knots ! Just as I was about to cup in the paste Brian Wharton shouts time and as I couldn't be bothered to just ship back I dropped the paste in..........................Yes, you've guessed it, 20 seconds later the float disappeared and I've hooked probably my biggest fish of the day ! I did shout "Fish On" but Plummers had been watching and Little Jim at the next peg even came along the bank to make sure I put the 9lb fish back ! And I thought these were supposed to be friendly matches - after all what are a couple of seconds amongst friends ?

Pound Watch

I knew it would be tough with Plummers on Old 1 but I thought my late burst might just have pipped him. As it turned out he pipped me by 12 OUNCES - I told you those lost fish would be expensive. Well done Plummers, keep it in your pocket cos I'll have it back on Sunday.

Result

Tony Plumbridge............Old 1............117-4-0

Dave Pearson..................New 8..........116-8-0

Donald Garnish..............Old 5.............90-2-0

Peter Turnbull...............Old 19...........85-2-0

"Wicket" Keeper...........Old 26...........72-10-0

Sunday sees me on the Leatherhead DAS match on the small Lake at Willow Park, the pegging will be a bit tight with 21 of us fishing but it is one of my favorite lakes and hopefully I'll have a decent match to report on Monday morning.

Don't forget I need some sponsors for my Charity match !

Willinghurst - Pittance and New Lakes

2009-08-02T12:18:00.001-07:00

There was a late change of plans for me this weekend as with the road works on the motorway likely to more than double the time it took us to get to Rolf's Lake, it was with regret that me and Hathers let a couple of reserves taker our places.

A quick call to Pete Turnbull soon had me booked in for the Leatherhead DAS match on Pittance and New Lakes at Willinghurst and for once I didn't draw a corner peg, although I did draw an Island !

Peg 5 on Pittance is one of the best pegs on the lake and although fishing it usually involves chucking a lead or method feeder to the island, I was happy to draw it as I have also had some decent bags on the pole as well.

The first thing I did was to set up a lead rod to fish the conker to the island as I knew if I set up the pole first then I probably wouldn't bother with the rod ! I then set up a couple of paste rigs to fish at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock at 12 metres and 9 metres respectively and an edge rig to corn and hemp to my left.

After feeding all the lines with some hemp and paste I then squeezed some paste round an 8mm pellett and launched it towards the point of the island. Second chuck the rod almost went in and I soon had a 3lb carp in the net, I do however find fishing the lead very boring and as when the wind dropped I could see fish blowing on my pole line, that was the only encouragement I needed to throw the rod up the bank !

Although the wind was blowing strongly from left to right making paste fishing a bit tricky I soon had a decent run of fish to 4lb and was really enjoying myself. I then made my first mistake of the match as I didn't want to empty the long pole line completely so rested it for a while and switched to the closer line where I had one carp and then lost a foulhooker which took my whole rig. Then when I went back long, the fish had gone. As I wanted to make up another rig for the short line I thought I'd lob out the lead whilst I tackled up again and get ready to play "Catch the rod". I'd just attached the line to the pole elastic when the rod headed towards the lake and another 3lber was soon in the net, next cast I'd got as far as threading the float on the line when I was interrupted yet again ! Next time I chucked it a bit short of the island in the hope that I would get a bit more time to finish my rig !

Back on the long pole line the fish returned and I decided to stick with it rather than swapping about, Jason Morgan on Peg 3 was catching well on the method feeder and although I thought he was probably ahead of me, I expected to catch down the edge later and that would hopefully be my chance to catch up.

Everyone seemed to have a bad hour in the middle of the match as the fish seemed to shut up shop for a while but as the match progressed they came back on the feed and as I'd tried fishing in the margins with corn with no success at all I decided to switch to fishing paste in the edge for the last hour in the hope of a few bigger fish to overhaul Jason. Fortunately the fish turned up in the margin and in the last hour I had 8 fish between 5 and 6lb and on the whistle I thought it was going to be close between me and Jason......................and it was !

Pound Watch

With Simmons moving house I only had Plummers to do battle with and was confident of victory number 4 in a row as soon as we'd drawn. He did however do well to finish 3rd overall but it still cost him another quid !

Result

Dave Pearson...............Pittance 5.............151-12-0

Jason Morgan..............Pittance 3.............146-10-0

Tony Plumbridge........Pittance 10..........104-12-0

Neil Osborne................Pittance 13..........104-8-0

Paul Taylor..................New 20.................92-0-0

So, despite missing out on a trip to Rolf's I did have a most enjoyable days fishing and have now caught 458lb of fish in my last three matches ! Wednesday sees me back at Willinghurst for the open which I expect to be on Old and New and then it's off to one of my favourite venues - Willow Park Small Lake, next sunday for another Leatherhead DAS club match.

2009-07-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

WARNING !!!!

If you draw near this man - Daiwa Dorking's Terry Harrison, then do not leave your peg for even a minute or two. Having struggled to carry his gear back to his car on Leatherhead's club match at Stub Pond last weekend, Don Garnish arrived home and when sorting out his carryall, in addition to his bait boxes and pelletts etc he also discovered about 12lb of assorted bricks !

I have also suffered at the hands of Mr Harrison (who despite being nearly 60 years old, still acts like he is 12) as having drawn next to him at Willinghurst last summer I arrived home to find a house brick covered in copious amounts of cement in the bottom of my tackle box !

Anyway, it was back to the corner pegs for me on Wednesdays Willinghurst open on New and Old Lake as when everyone else had drawn I was left with Old Lake Peg 1.

With only 5 pegs being used on New Lake Ross and I agreed before hand that the peg we both wanted was New 6 on the point, and guess who drew it..............Plummers ! So, even before the start I was going to struggle to make it a hatrick of £1 coins coming my way.

However, I was quite happy with my peg as although little Jim (Jim Long) had only caught 30lb out of it last wednesday, Wicket (Mick Keeper) did weigh in 107lb in a previous match so I knew it had some form. I decided to fish one line tight to the bank about 10 metres along the end bank with meat and hemp - which I expected to catch on late in the match as the water was only a foot deep there. My other two paste lines were at the base of the shelf at 12 metres along the end bank and at about 7 metres in the in the open water to my left.

My paste rig which doubled up for both paste lines as they were the same depth was a Maver 4x14 paste float on 0.18 G Line with a Drennan Barbless Carp Feeder size 10 hook. I've only just started using these hooks but my initial tests have been very encouraging. I had three pastes with me, the remains of the swim stim green paste I used on Sunday, a brown pellett based mix and one I'd made from Hinders Krab and Krill mix which stunk to high heaven and made me feel sick when I took the lid off the bait box !

Plummers had a fish first chuck on the method feeder as I initially struggled to get a bite. However, as the match progressed I began to catch the odd fish on my longer paste line and after 2 hours had 8 carp and a skimmer in the net. The sun then came out and the peg died completely and I had a biteless hour or so. As I was now finding it very hard to see my float in the difficult light conditions I decided to try another line in a column of "White Water" I had in the peg. First put in on the new line, despite having fed nothing I had a carp of about 4lb. Feeding nothing except the paaste coming off the hook, I soon had a few blows in the peg and started to catch really well. Plummers was well ahead of me but when I had a little spell 6 fish whilst he sat there biteless I thought if I could just catch a few more then I might be taking home his pound after all !

With 90 minutes to go I was still catching the odd fish long but decided to give the edge peg a go. First put in with 2 cubes of 6mm luncheon meat the float buried and I soon had a 6lb fish in the net. I continued to swap between the edge and paste lines and although things slowed a bit I think I added another 5 edge fish and a few more paste fish before the match ended.

Talk on the bankside gapevine was that Tony Yianni had bagged up on the method feeder from Peg 19 on Old Lake and probably had over 200lb and from what I'd seen it was likely to be between me and Plummers for the other frame places and I thought I might just have done him.

Result

Tony Yianni................Old 19...........................205-12-0
Dave Pearson............Old 1..............................147-4-0
Tony Plumbridge......New 6...........................137-2-0
Steve Gardener.........New 12.........................124-6-0
Donald Garnish..........New 4.............................88-0-0
Wicket Keeper...........Old 26.............................83-12-0

Pound Watch

For the second match in a row Plummers finishes in the frame and still hands over a pound as his losing sequence now moves on to 3 matches !

Sunday sees me joining some of the Match Fishing Scene chaps at Rolf's Lake in Oxfordshire and although I've only fished it twice, I'm really looking forward to it and hope to catch a few fish - I wonder if I'll draw another corner peg ?

Stub Pond - Plantation Lake

2009-07-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

Regular readers - yes suprisingly there are a few, may well remember that on my previous trip to Stub Pond earlier in the season I was one of 4 anglers drawn in a line and finished up nearly last in the match with 16lb in a match won my Ross Nursey with 120lb.

This time we were on the left hand bank and with 20 odd anglers fishing, competition secretary Peter Turnbull had pegged it two pegs then a gap so that everyone had at least one blank peg next to them. Having drawn Peg 7 I looked down the draw sheet to see there were two anglers still to draw and three pegs remaining as there was one angler who hadn't arrived.

Fortunately for me nobody drew Peg 6 which meant that I had a blank peg to my left and TWO blank pegs to my right ! Thanks for not turning up Howard !!!!!

Whilst some like to fish a lead or waggler and then play "Try to pull the fish away from the island , I always fish paste on the pole at between 6 and 9 metres and also a margin swim if I can get to it properly. With the wind blowing strongly from left to right I set up to fish paste at 11 O'clock at about 8 metres and also at 2 o'clock just down the shelf at about 6 metres - I hoped this would be my banker line as it would be easier to fish being "Down the wind" and also not as far out. I also did a bit of gardening in the edge and cleaned out a lovely little margin swim.

My rigs were 0.20 G Line to a size 10 B911 hook, one with a maver paste float and one with a Hillbilly Pikey Paste float. Both rigs were fished on my H10 edge pole with red hydro in the tops.

My paste was made from Green Swim stim pelletts and dynamite baits meaty pellett ground bait in a tin - a mix I have used successfully at Stub Pond before. On the whistle I cupped in a big pot of hemp with a bit of paste on all the lines and started fishing the longer line. Whilst presentation wasn't easy in the wind I started to get a few bites and after an hour had 5 carp in the net which from what I could hear on the bankside grapevine wasn't doing too badly. I was desperate to catch on the shorter line as it was so much easier to fish but depite keep trying it, I didn't have my first indication there until nearly 2 and a half hours into the match. I then just rotated the two lines, feeding a pot of hemp as I left each one. With two hours to go I had 20 carp in the net but just as I was expecting to really bag up, the peg started to slow up, there were still fish about in the peg but they seemed a lot more cautious than earlier.

I was also a bit side tracked when a friendly cat arrived at my peg to shelter from the rain and hopefully find some food and I have to admit to missing a couple of bites whilst stroking it !

I finished the match with 28 carp, one bream a perch and a sort of F1 and a thoroughly enjoyable days fishing which made a pleasant change after a few tough matches lately.

The lake fished really well with 6 weights over 100lb which isn't bad considering that everyone keeps telling me that they have taken all the fish out !

Result

Dave Pearson...................159-2-0

Tony Plumbridge............127-0-0

Donald Garnish................124-0-0

Paul Taylor......................112-10-0

Ross Nursey....................112-1-0

Terry Harrison...............112-0-0

Pound Watch

Only Plummers to beat today with Simmons a "No Show". Despite finishing second in the match he still had to pay up and I'm going for the Hatrick on Wednesday at Willinghurst !

I popped round to my local club pond on Saturday where Leatherhead DAS were holding their annual "Fishing Day" where anyone can turn up free of charge and try fishing - many for the first time. Well done to everyone who helped organise it - especially Club Chairman Eric Vaissiere.

A brilliant day was had by all, the club got a few more members and hopefully a few more anglers were recruited to this great sport of ours. My mate Hathers brought his two girls along and they both caught so well that they wanted to go fishing again on Monday !

Willinghurst New / Old Lakes

2009-07-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

I hate drawing these featureless corner pegs !

I was all ready to have to fish the Method Feeder on Old Lake then drew one of the five Pegs they had put on New Lake. I was however quite happy to do so as although Peg 8 isn't the peg it used to be now that the gap between New and Old Lake is filled in, it is however a decent looking peg and always produces a few fish.

On a recent trip to Sainsburys they'd reduced the price of their prawns so I thought it was the ideal time to try my prawn paste again and duly sneaked a couple of packets into the trolley !

Unfortunately due to the fact that I spent the majority of Tuesday evening down a drain trying to rescue three baby coots at my local club pond, I had no time to prepare my paste properly and had to do it on the bank in the morning - which for me is not an ideal situation.

My plan of attack was to fish paste by the far edge of the tree and luncheon meat / hemp along the right hand bank at 14 metres and then feed a couple of lines either side in the shallow margins. An early fish of about 8lb on the past eline was very welcome but everytime I shipped back I looked to my right and could see Steve Gardener on Peg 19 (the only peg you can reach the central bar with the pole on Old Lake) netting a fish and with nobody on 14,15,16,17,18,20 or 21, I thought that he was going to empty it !

I had a frustrating morning where I had fish blowing in the peg but couldn't catch them, my prawn paste was too stodgy and not the right consistency (that'll teach me to prepare properly) and I was also snapped up by two fish on 0.18 line when I pulled the fish away from the tree and whilst I was playing them on the top 3 they snapped the line near the hook. I can only assume that the line had been damaged by an underwater branch when I initially tried to pull them away from the tree.

At halfway, I probably had about 6 fish but I could only catch roach on the long luncheon meat line and hadn't seen a sign of a fish in the margins. Ross (Peg 13) and Alan Harrington (Peg 6) were opposite each other on my lake and looked like making it a 1,2 as they were both catching regularly on a tea bag and hair rigged pellet. A quick look in the margin to my left saw me add some nice roach up to 12 ounces to my net but it was carp I needed so I switched back to the paste line where I had a couple more fish before the roach invaded that line as well. In the last hour I did catch 4 more carp fishing two 6mm cubes of lunchon meat on my long line and finished with about 13 carp, 1 crucian and a coupl eof pound of roach for 88-10-0.

As expected Ross took first place with 140-2-0 with Alan finishing second with the only other 100lb+ weight of the day. Steve Gardener took top weight on Old Lake with 98-2-0 which included a fish of about 15lb that he mugged in the edge.

Pound Watch
Only Plummers to beat today and did that comfortably with 88-10-0 -to 69-8-0 which was nice as he was getting a bit cocky having won 4 in a row as a succession of brilliant draws gave him too much of an advantage !

Result

Ross Nursey............New 13..................140-2-0

Alan Harrington.....New 6.....................113-8-0

Steve Gardener......Old 19......................98-2-0

Dave Pearson..........New 8.....................88-10-0

Alan Woods..............Old 11....................79-0-0

Tony Plumbridge....Old 26....................69-8-0

Donald Garnish.......Old 7.......................62-0-0

Mick Keeper............Old 24....................56-12-0

Brian Wharton........Old 5......................53-4-0

Jeff Dickinson..........New 4....................52-8-0

Tony Yianni............Old 22....................52-0-0

Ian Covey................New 1....................38-0-0

Jim Long.................Old 1......................30-0-0

Sunday sees me back at Stub Pond on Plantation Lake with Leatherhead DAS and as long as I make my paste the night before then I should be ok ! Hopefully the fish will be away from the island and we wont have to chuck a lead or waggler across to catch.