To be honest, I've not been that excited about my fishing lately and if I didn't enjoy the match fishing craic so much then I probably wouldn't have gone at all recently. The weather has been cold and wet most weekends and due to being very busy at work I've not really had to prepare for matches properly and using the age old motto, "Fail to Prepare - Prepare to Fail" and when you are fishing against the likes of Steve Gardener, Terry Harrison etc, that's exactly what has been happening as I've just been throwing away £35 a week on match entries and bait.
Anyway, this week I deceided to fish on Saturday and earn a few Valentines Day brownie points on Sunday so booked in to Terry Molloy's match on the match lake at Sumners Pond. When Plummers rang for a chat on Thursday, he said that because all the carp seem to be shoaled up in certain areas, Terry had decided to have a Silverfish pool as well so if you drew away from the carp you still had something to fish for. So, with me stuck at work and the nearest decent casters being in Sutton some 10 miles away, I rang my mate Don who I knew would be visiting the tackle shop on Friday and he agreed to pick me up a pint of Steve Sander's finest shells.
Saturday morning arrived, as did Plummers at what still seemed like the middle of the night (but was infact 6.30am) and within 45 minutes we were eating a most enjoyable breakfast in the Sumners Pond chalet. With 17 anglers fishing the pegs I fancied were 2,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12 and 17 but unfortunately drew Peg 14 in the open water on the right hand bank between teh first and second islands. I decided to fish for carp and set up a lead to fish bread / Corn / pellett and the pole at 13 metres fishing corn. Despite having a liner when I chucked out before the match to make sure that Ben at the next peg and I weren't casting too close to each other, I fished the first hour on the lead switching baits about but never had a sign of a bite or liner. As the anglers on the other bank were catching the odd carp - including Plummers who'd had 4 already, I thought I might as well get out a roach rig and at least get a few bites.
It was at this point that I shouted across to Don that I'd be round for my casters only to hear that he'd forgotten to pick them up from the tackle shop ! So, that was the end of my silvers fishing before it had even started ! I took this picture of Don after the match still trying to remember what he was supposed to pick up at the tackle shop !
Anyway, I spent another biteless hour on the long pole and lead before deciding that I needed a walk to warm up. On reaching Plummers peg I related my casterless tale of woe and with 4 carp already in the net he had already decided not to bother with a silvers line so very kindly donated his casters to me - Thanks mate. On the way back to my peg the only angler I saw fishing for silvers was Tony Yianni and although I was a few hours behind him, I still thought I could catch him.
Back at my peg I mixed Plummers casters with some hemp and attached a silvers rig 4x16 Drennan Lake float on 0.10 line with a T213 hook on an 0.8 G Line hooklength to the end of the Number 4 Slip elastic and plumbed up at 5 metres. The water here was probably 3 foot deep which I hoped would be deep enough for the roach to stay and feel comforatble in as I really didn't want to fish any further out as the wind was quite strong and I really didn't want to fish any further out.
I started loose feeding some hemp and a few casters continuously and despite a very slow start, I soon began picking up some decent roach then a nice chub of about a pound and a half. By constantly changing the depth and keep varying the catching area I managed to keep roach coming until the last 45 minutes when the peg just seemed to die and I wondered if infact a carp or two had moved in to the peg but the match ended before I could find out.
Jason Morgan had won the battle of the far bank carpers with 7 carp for 39lb, followed by Terry Maddox (pictured right) with 35lb and then Don Garnish with 32lb (incidentally they were either side of Terry Molloy who only had 2 carp) but it wasn't the carp catchers I was interested in but Tony Yianni whose net of silvers was suprisingly recorded as 9-3-0 with most of his catch being small "maggot roach".
As the scales arrived at my peg and I pulled my net out, I knew I'd done enough to pick up the £40 silvers prize as the digital scales settled on 12-1-0 and I just wished I'd fished for silvers from the start.
So, what started off as a struggle finished up as a most enjoyable few hours silvers fishing although by the time we packed up I could hardly write on the weigh sheet as I was so cold.
Next weeks match will depend on the midweek weather as it could either be a Leatherhead DAS club match on the River Mole, a Molloy Match at Sumners on the Saturday or if the river is flooded then the club match might be moved to the ponds round the corner from my house.
We'll just have to see what the weather throws at us this week.
