It was really strange fishing Sundays Leatherhead DAS match at More House Farm just outside Haywards Heath in East Sussex, as whilst it is a fairly "Local" venue, the majority of us hadn't fished it before and with little information being available on any of the fishing websites, we approached it not really knowing how it would fish or how to fish it.With the wind blowing down the lake into Peg 20 (see picture above) which unlike most of the lake was surounded by rushes, we all decided that Peg 20 was the flier and when I drew it, everyone was really pleased for me !
Plummers had fished the peg on Friday on one of his usual practice sessions and bagged up so I was confident of catching a fish or two, especially as I knew that he had fished paste. With the wind blowing hard from right to left, it was impossible to fish across to the far bank with a pole so I settled on three lines, one at 5 metres and one at 10 metres against the end bank rushes and one at 9 metres straight out in front. My plan was to fish paste on both long lines feeding hemp and a few pelletts and luncheon meat and hemp on the shorter line.
I started off reasonably well with a few little fish (4-6oz) and 3 or 4 2lbers in the first hour from the "long rushes" line but then that line died and with no indications on the meat line I tried to fish straight out in front but the wind was making it impossible to keep the bait still. Matthew Jefferies at the next peg had just started catching at about 6 metres so I fed a big pot of hemp / pelletts at 5 metres where it was just about possible to control the pole and went for a quick wander whilst I let it settle.
Back at my peg, I cupped in my paste and as the float settled, it just kept going as a ghostie of about 2lb took the bait. This was followed quite quickly by 4 of his "mates" before the peg died and the pattern for the rest of the match emerged, as it seemed that you would catch a few fish then they would disappear and you just had to wait for them to return.
I had a very frustrating afternoon where I was catching 4 or 5 small carp to every "proper" one and nothing I did increased the size of the fish I was catching whilst Matthew at the next peg seemed to be catching all decent size fish. We decided in the end that I'd just drawn the Nursery peg !
Whilst I had caught a few fish, I ended the match thinking that I could have done alot better, I wasn't sure that paste was the right bait, as most of the top weights had been caught on corn and / or meat but to be fair I did try luncheon meat and didn't really catch much on it. It was good to try another fishery and I think I'd like to give it another go. The one silly thing about the fishery is that they have built "Pole Rollers" behind each peg, which are basically metal poles (you can see it in the picture at the top) and with the wind blowing like it did on sunday I think that about 5 people broke pole sections on them !
Result
Peter Turnbull..........Peg 13................80lb
Tony Plumbridge.....Peg 2..................63lb
Matthew Jefferies....Peg 19................61lb
Dave Pearson............Peg 20...............59lb
My catch consisted of 16lb of small carp and 43lb of 1-3lb fish so at least I had a few bites. Well done Matthew for beating me off the next peg - he did seem quite excited to have done so ! and Well Done Plummers on taking yet another of my £1 coins, I'll be out for revenge over you both next sunday !
Having missed last wednesdays match due to work, I'm looking forward to tomorrows match at Willinghurst although I'm not sure which lake we are on. Come back Thursday to see where we fished and how I got on.
