Pikey's Winter League - Round 1

I always look forward to fishing my winter league as with the anglers fishing, even if the fishing isn't brilliant, we always have a laugh. I originally started the league 4 or 5 years ago when fed up with handing Dorking anglers my hard earned money each week in the Surrey Division of the Angling Times Winter League, I decided to set up a "Less serious league" where it wasn't just about winning.

Due to the economic climate and I'm sure the fact that Willinghurst isn't fishing as well as before, we were down to 8 teams of 5 this year but with the fishery letting us have 5 lakes it meant that we could spread anglers out and hopefully catch a few more fish.

My team of Me, Ross Nursey, Mark Smith, Gary Haisman and John Swann, and appropriately named "Over the Hill" looked quite strong (apart from the obvious weak link) and when Smiffy drew us Peg 3, we were quite happy as it gave us three or four decent pegs.

I was more than happy with drawing Peg 5 on Pittance as despite being a feeder or lead peg, I did have 150lb+ from it earlier in the summer on the pole. Despite the lake not fishing very well the day before, they did have 13 anglers on the open match and with us only having 8 pegs on the lake I thought we'd all catch a few.

I set up a lead to fish a T Bag to the point of the island, two edge rigs to fish right and left with hemp and corn and a paste line at 12.5 metres at 10 o'clock (so that I wasn't dragging any fish hooked on the lead through the paste line). After feeding the pole lines I started by lobbing out a T bag with a hair rigged 8mm pellett attached towards the point of the island and sat back, waiting to grab the rod as it headed towards the lake, and I waited...........and waited.........and waited ! This was unusual as in previous matches the tip wouldn't sit still with liners before the rod went round and you just reeled in a fish !

Tony Yianni (on Peg 13) was already catching on the method feeder and John Clifford on Peg 1 was catching on the paste, so after 5 or 6 chucks, up the bank went the rod and out came the pole. Second put in, the paste float dipped and I soon had a 3lb carp in the net, followed by a skimmer of about 2lb.

By now, everyone seemed to be catching a few (apart from Mick the Bookie who seemed determined to cast everywhere in the lake except in his own peg ! ). After a couple of hours the wind dropped considerably, the surface of the lake went flat calm and nearly everyone seemed to stop catching.

By messing about with the texture of my paste, I managed to still catch the odd fish until the last 90 minutes or so when everyone started to catch again. I'd been having a look down the edge and had one fish and with an hour to go I had one more but as I was struggling to get a bite on corn, I quickly set up an edge paste rig. In the last hour I had 4 carp and with one pushing 13lb and finished the match with a 4lb fish last put in.

Tony Yianni admitted to 21 carp so I knew that with 15 carp and a skimmer, I wasn't going to win the lake but thought it would be close between some of the others. However, the only thing that really mattered was that I took Simmo's pound and when he weighed 70-8-0, I thought it would be close. Fortunately for me my bonus 13lber made all the difference as my final weight was recorded as 78-0-0.

Back at the cabin, Smiffy had won his lake (and we thought the match) with 106-12-0, Ross had won his lake with 65lb and Swanny was second on his with 81lb, so with 2 section wins and two seconds, all we needed was Haisman to have a half decent result and we'd have walked it !

Well, I could here him moaning about 50 yards away and I did have a little sympathy for him (just a little bit) when I heard that he had arrived at his peg to find two Polish chaps fishing 4 rods in his peg and they'd already fed three bags of GB and 6 tins of corn ! They were still eating the sausages from their barbeque and had also drunk 6 bottles of beer. Anyway, Haisman had 14-14-0 (3 carp) to finish 5th in his section of 8. To be fair, our score of 34 points would normally have been enough to win but Plummers won his lake with 107-0-0 (pipping Smiffy for 1st place by 4 OUNCES) with Tony Kent and Tony Yianni both winning their lakes and Jason Morgan and Alan Harrington finishing third in theirs, they pipped us by 2 points. Well done chaps.

So, the pound I won off Simmons, I had to give straight to Plummers as he stopped the rot of three defeats in a row.

Result - Top Ten

Tony Plumbridge....Down the Edge.......Horseshoe 10......107-0-0
Mark Smith.............Over the Hill...........Old 7.....................106-12-0
Tony Yianni............Down the Edge.......Pittance 13..............95-8-0
John Swann............Over the Hill...........Horseshoe 3............81-0-0
Dave Pearson.........Over the Hill..........Pittance 5................78-0-0
Terry Harrson.......Decca.......................Old 5........................74-0-0
Jeff Simmons.........Muppetts................Pittance 14..............70-8-0
Brian Wallin...........Molesey...................Horseshoe 12.........68-8-0
Ross Nursey..........Over the Hill...........New 6.....................65-6-0
Alan Harrington...Down the Edge.......Old 22.....................63-8-0

Teams

Down the Edge ...............................36 Pts
Over the Hill...................................34 pts
Molesey...........................................25.5 pts
Decca................................................21.5 pts
Foxy Five........................................21.5 pts
Muppetts.........................................17 pts
Bookie Bashers...............................13 pts
Willinghurst Cabin..........................9.5 pts

I'm at Willinghurst on Wednesday then next sunday we have a club match on the ponds just 150 yards from my house so at least I won't have to worry about finding someone to give me a lift to the match as I can walk !