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 ?