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.
