Don't ask me why I did it but with some "Time off in Lieu" owed to me by work, I had a bit of a brainstorm and booked in for the Wednesday open at Willinghurst ! I do love the place and the people who fish there but with a heavy frost for the past few mornings and a cold northerly wind, it was unlikely to fish well.
As usual Plummers turned up in the early hours of the morning and by 7am we were sitting in the Willinghurst Cabin drinking tea and waiting for the 9am draw ! However, after a bite to eat, 3 walks around the lakes and another 4 cups of Tea, we were ready to draw.
Someone in their wisdom had decided that we should fish Top Lake (although nobody admitted it was them) but with only 11 fishing and the pegs well spread, I didn't really mind where I drew. After the usual moaning and whinging about their pegs, I picked Peg 24 from the bag, which was actually one of my favourite pegs in the back spit.
With it being such a short notice booking (I only decided to fish on Tuesday morning) I had none of my usual paste mix ready but having completed our usual monthly shop at Sainsburys the night before, I managed to sneak a couple of tins of dog food into the trolley to make some paste.
My plan of attack was to fish two paste lines out in front and a corn line either side in the edge.
The water looked to be a couple of inches down and the depth in the back spit all over seemed to be about two foot, which wouldn't make things easy, especially when the sun came out and cast the shadow of my pole over the water.
I started by feeding one paste line and the two corn lines but left the other paste line so that the only feed would be the paste that came off the hook. As usual with most of the Willinghurst matches I report on.................the match started very slowly for everyone ! Don Garnish on Peg 26 had two early fish on the method feeder and Alan Harrington had a couple in Peg 2 on the pole but for the rest of us it was very quiet. After three hours I'd lost one foulhooker on paste but that was the total sum of my action as I began to rue my decision to book in - especially as Plummers - who was next to me on Peg 22 and also biteless said he'd have happilly gone to fish the Framfield open !
Switching about between the four lines, I finally foul hooked a carp (which I lost) down by the dead tree in the water to my right. As I'd also had a few liners down there I figured that any fish in the vicinity could well be hanging about around the tree branches so thought I'd try fishing paste as near to the branches as I dare.
First put in I had an indication that there were some fish about and then the float shot under only for me to find that the fish was already in the tree and not coming out ! I then had an interesting couple of hours trying to work out the best way to try and extract the fish out of their safe haven. Whilst Alan Harrington was well ahead and unlikely to be caught, I thought if I could just string a few fish together, I might just sneak second place ahead of Don and Brian Wharton who were still getting the odd fish. Fishing with purple hydro, as soon as I struck, I pulled the pole away from the tree as quickly as I could, and I if I could get the fish a yard away from the branches then steady pressure got them in front of me and were then easy to net. I would have liked to have used my H10 edge pole but when I tried to reach the tree with it I was still a metre short so had to settle for the Power Legion which was still well up to the task.
Other than spending time trying to pull fish out of the tree, I had one sad moment when a fish had obviously weakened my 0.18 G Line by dragging it through the branches and then one swam off with one of my favourite Hillbilly Pikey Paste floats ! One entertaining bit was when the wind lifted my brolley (which I hadn't attached properly) off my box where it headed towards Woody behind me at about 50 MPH, I did shout a warning as I thought it was going to take him out completly but luckily it missed and landed upside down in the main part of the lake before sailing across to Ross on Peg 10.
With 20 minutes to go and Don and Brian very close to me fish count wise, I thought I needed one more fish to have a chance of second place. As it had all gone a bit quiet, I fed a pot of paste and then went to rescue my brolly. Arriving back at my peg with 10 minutes to go I just knew I was going to catch another fish and as expected the float disappeared within seconds and I netted my 7th and final carp of the day.
As expected, Alan Harrington's 9 carp which were bigger than ours went 64lb to easily take the £100 first prize which as he quite rightly stated, meant he wouldn't have to touch his old age pension this week ! Brian Wharton then placed 35-8-0 on the scales before my 37-0-0 just pipped him. Although Don also had 7 carp, all of his were feeder fish which are nearly always smaller and sure enough his 30-0-0 was only good enough for 4th place on a day where Steve Gardener only had a few silvers and Plummers actually Blanked !
Sunday sees me back at Willinghurst on the Old Lake for the first Leatherhead DAS match of the season. Hopefully the weather will warm up by then, although with a lot of anglers on the lake, I don't expect it to fish too well.
