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 WatchWith 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.
