After 8 days with no fishing, I was really looking forward to the Willinghurst "Double Header" match on the Top Lake with us fishing 10am - 2pm and 4pm - 8pm. We all expected the first half to be tough especially as it was a bright sunny day but hoped to bag a few in the later section.
As the draw took place, Tony Plumbridge or Tony "The Cat" as he is also known, my regular £1 donor drew Peg 2 which I really fancied and it was clear that my hard earned cash was in danger. With only two pegs in the bag, it was going to be either Peg 12 (a peg I do like and have won from recently) or Peg 14, which is right in the corner and although it had some recent form, the wind was blowing out of it and I wouldn't even have pegged it ! Fortunately, Brian Wharton, who'd done the pegging picked it out and had one roach in the morning and I think two carp and a roach in the afternoon.
My plan of attack was to fish paste at 8 metres in the first half of the match and then fish both margins in the second half with Luncheon meat and hemp. The match started very slowly for me and after 2 hours I'd had just one carp on the paste line and was more concerned that whilst you usually get indications and liners etc when fishing paste, even when you aren't catching, I wasn't getting any signs at all. I had a quick wander along to see Plummers on Peg 2 and was gutted to hear that he'd had 6 carp so it looked like my £1 was going his way.
Back at my peg the wind had got stronger and stronger and the only place I could fish properly was down the left hand margin by the rushes, and even then I had to fish quite a long line to stop the pole dragging the float about as it blew in the wind. I fished two 6mm cubes of meat on a size 14 B911 hook right in the corner and after two early fish I decided that the fish had to come a long way along the bank to reach the corner and I might do better fishing further along the bank in a little cut out in the rushes.I cupped in a pot of bait and then topped up each put in with a paste cup full. Sure enough, I started to catch the odd fish and although they were small by Willinghurst standards (mainly 3-4lb fish) at least I was catching.
On the half time whistle I grabbed the scales and made my way round to Peg 1 to start weighing in. Woody and Plummers were in the "Bomb Hole" and weighed in 49-8-0 and 59-12-0 respectively then there were a couple 25lb plus weights before I put 43-8-0 on thre scales. And, whilst it meant I'd lost a pound to Plummers, it did mean that I picked up £15 for winning my 5 man section as Tony Yianni was second from Peg 18 with 25-0-0. As we looked at the weigh sheets in the cabin whilst putting away a burger (or two in some peoples cases, mentioning no names ....Malcolm Heaver) they showed that Mick "I live in the back spit" Keeper was leading from Peg 25 with 62-8-0, closely followed by Plummers with 59-12-0 and Reg the Edge on Peg 23 with 56-14-0. However, with me being only 20lb behind the leader, I still fancied my chances in the second half and I was also desperate to get my pound back.
My plan for the second half of the match was to carry on fishing by the rushes to the left and also keep feeding the margin to my right and watch out for signs of fish coming in. I also decided to fish a shorter paste line stright out in front at about 6 metres. Having fed all three lines, I started off fishing long to my left and had a fish almost immediately before leaving it to settle for a while after losing two foulhookers. My paste swim in the morning had been hopeless with only one fish to show for my efforts and no signs of fish at all but the afternoon session was a bit diffferent as on my first put in on the 6 metre line I had a fish of about 6lb, then another,and another etc etc as I had 6 fish in six put ins with the float disappearing within 20 seconds of the bait hitting the bottom. From then on the paste line died and I had to switch about between the other lines to keep a few fish coming. The wind was still blowing hard and making it difficult to fish the long line to my left so I cupped some more bait in the corner where I'd originally caught in the morning and started to catch a few fish there. Every now and then when glancing down down to my right I'd see a sign of a fish in the edge and when I dropped a paste rig down there managed to catch them within seconds. I finished the match the best way possible with a fish last put in and with Plummers saying he'd struggled in the afternoon, it looked like my pound was coming home !
As expected, the afternoon session had fished a bit better Woody took the lead with 70-12-0 before Plummers beat him with 79-4-0 and although I didn't tell him, I knew that my money was safe. Tony Yianni weighed 74-0-0 from Peg 18 so it looked as though I could win the section again and hopefully even frame as only Mick Keeper had really caught in the back spit. As it turned out, my fish went 107-8-0 to top the afternoon session but with Mick Keeper weighing 99-4-0 it was not enough to win overall.
Result
Mick Keeper............Peg 25...............161-12-0
Dave Pearson..........Peg 12................151-0-0
Tony Plumbridge...Peg 2..................139-0-0
Alan Woods..............Peg 1..................120-4-0
Tony Yianni.............Peg 18.................99-0-0
Ross Nursey............Peg 10.................97-12-0
Sunday sees me fishing the Leatherhead DAS match on Plantation Lake at Stub Pond, hopefully the rumours we have heard regarding the movement off fish from the lake prove to be untrue and we'll have a decent days fishing as I did have some brilliant matches there last year. Next wednesday sees us back at Willinghurst for a "Any Method" match which means that we can fish floaters as well so it will be interesting to see how that goes.
See you all soon.
