With a lack of suitable matches in my area, I booked on the regular Willinghurst open on Sunday, this week split between Old and Horseshoe Lakes. I had a cunning plan if I drew Old Lake and this involved fishing two long lines, one feeding micros and fishing expanders dead depth on the hook with the float shotted down to a dimple and lifting and dropping, with the other line being fed with Marukyu 130 GB with a few dead maggotts, and fishing either JPZ pelletts or dead maggotts on the hook. I also intended to feed a short line at the bottom of the slope at about 6 metres with 130 and dead maggotts. Oh yes, I would also set up a lead in case I wasn't catching and had to have a few chucks. My plan for Horeseshoe was...........................not to draw it as the only time I catch on there is if they are in the edge !
Fortunately for me I drew Peg 3 on Old Lake, not a peg I really fancied but at least it was on the lake I wanted and first indications were tha
t the wind wasn't too bad. Although I would rather have been in Pegs 26 or 1 as they were even more sheltered from the wind but Peg 1 was to be the home of match organisor John Radford (see left) for the day. However, within half an hour, the wind which was supposed to be easing off was getting stronger and stronger, meaning my long pole lines were certainly going to be a struggle. So much so that I binned the dimpled float /pellett idea and decided to fish just one long line with GB and dead magotts, plus the 2 short lines. Having set up with the wind getting stronger and stronger I heard a shout from John 
on Peg 1 and as I looked round I could see something behind me blowing around on his feeder rig. At first, I assumed he had hooked a bag or a cloth but as I got up to help I could see that he had cast out with a feeder with no hooklength on and it had gone over a duck in mid air and tangled it up. Fortunately, after a bit of TLC we managed to free the duck and released it unharmed !
On the whistle, I fed all three lines with cup of Marukyu 130 with a few dead maggots in. I then banded a 10mm pellett on my lead rig attached it to a T Bag and launched it out somewhere in front of me. Regular readers will know how much I hate fishing the lead as it bores me to death but on this occasion due to the wind (and the fact that the sun was now shining right in my eyes), my pole line looked like this. I think the conditions actually helped me as I would never have spent as long on the lead as I did if I could have fished the pole and although the action wasn't exactly red hot, after a couple of hours I'd had three carp for about 18lb. A quick look on the right hand short pole line boosted my catch by one gudgeon and half an hour later when I tried the left hand side I had a nice chub of about 2.5lb.
If you want to know why I find fishing the lead boring then sit and look at this picture for an hour or so and you'll know why !
The wind which was supposed to be easing off showed no signs of doing so so I remained on the lead, just casting around the peg whilst feeding nothing and mugging the odd carp. With about half an hour remaining, the wind finally dropped enough for me to get out on the long pole line.
I knew from what I had seen and heard on our lake that I was up with the leaders but needed a couple more fish as John on Peg 1 was catching well in the edge and some were proper HORSES. Within minutes of going out on the long pole, I hooked a decent fish of 9lb+ which on white hydro was "interesting" to say the least. A couple of roach and a rudd followed before with Jason Morgan and John having one of their usual arguments, this time about the finishing time of the match, I thought if I could just ship out quick enough, I might just hook one more fish before the final whistle. Sure enough, within seconds of my bait hitting the bottom, my float disappeared and as I lifted the pole John called time ! A few minutes later I netted a fish of about 4lb which turned out to be a very useful addition to my net. So, after 6 hours of tough winter like fishing, I'd finished up with 7 carp, 1 Chub, 2 roach, 2 rudd and a gudgeon !
I was second to last to weigh in on Old lake and as the scales approached, 46lb was winning from Peg 11 - My fish went 49-12-0 and now only John could stop me winning the lake. As he pulled his net from the water, it looked close between us but it wasn't until Jason put the net on the scales and I watched the needle pull round past 46lb, kept going passed 49lb and finally settled on .................................49-10-0. I knew I'd beaten him really and just wanted to tease him a bit by finishing 2 ounces in front of him ! Yeah right !
This was the first time I'd been to Willinghurst for a while and it was good to see a few new faces there, apart from the fact that they took all our money ! Fortunately for me they did a continental payout so I picked up the £65 second place money for winning Old Lake. So, welcome to Willinghurst the Marshall family and mates, I hope we see a bit more of you over the winter.
Result
Graham Marshall..........Horseshoe 7........................52-12-0
Phil Marshall.................Horseshoe 12......................50-10-0
Dave Pearson................Old 3....................................49-12-0
John Radford................Old 1....................................49-10-0
I'm not out fishing next Sunday as I have a family get together at my brothers in Goring (which brings back memories of club matches on the Thames there), so I'll be trying to hire the services of a guest blogger.
