Pikey's Progress

2006-11-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

Hurray - I've finally managed to get back into my Blog Site.
Come back here on Monday for an update on the weekends result.

2006-07-25T00:28:00.000-07:00

Getting it Wrong !

For me, Sunday was one of those days where you have 110% confidence in how to approach a venue and then it changes completely and you are left looking very silly.

Stubpond was the venue for the latest Leatherhead DAS club match and having won last time we visited with 168lb, I thought I had it sussed ! Feed pellet and hemp at a comfortable distance 10/11 metres and also fish a line just down the shelf. Paste is the hook bait and prepare to hold on tight !!!!

We were fishing on the right hand bank of Plantation Lake (Pegs 34-67) and from previous experience I fancied a draw in the 60’s as these pegs are very consistent. In went the hand and out came ………………Peg 64 ! I was more than happy with that, but only for a couple of seconds as match organiser Pete Turnbull announced that he had taken the peg out to give people a bit more room – Thanks Pete ! Second time around Peg 52 stuck to my little hand which I didn’t really fancy – infact I fancied it even less when I reached it as it looked as though nobody had fished it this year as the reeds in front of the platform were almost 3 foot high and although we all had at least one blank peg to one side of us, the pegging was really tight and I had Spindle (Mark Nevins) only about 10 metres to my left and Jim Heasman about 16 metres to my right. And this for someone who is used to drawing end pegs on club matches ! The other draw back to the peg was that either someone had done a large pooh in the area or it was very close to the gypsy cess pit for the site that was just the other side of the trees just 10 metres away. Luckily I only got a whiff when the wind blew in a certain direction but it nearly made me heave when I went past the 2 pegs to my right.

At this stage, I was still confident that I could catch down the middle and down the shelf but there did seem to be more and more fish showing up in the water on the far bank as the sun got hotter and hotter. In hindsight, what I should have done is to set up a shallow waggler and / or a lead to fish the far bank. However, this would have been difficult as all my rods AND all my reels were at home !

I used to hate fishing Stubpond as I always seemed to struggle there and would lose a lot of fish, however, rig wise, I now think I’ve got it sorted, fishing 0.20 G Line to red hydro and using A B911 hook. I actually feel well in control now, catching fish up to 16lb in the last few matches and the only time I struggle (as does everyone) is if you foul hook one of them.

After cupping in a couple of pots of pellet and hemp on all three lines – down the middle and either side just down the shelf, I started off down the middle fishing “Meat Paste” and had my first fish (about 12lb) after 10 minutes. Not a bad start, except that I then sat there for the next hour and a half without a bite, or even a sign of a fish. Usually at Stub, when you feed, you nearly always get a few fishing blowing where you’ve fed and at least give you some confidence that you have something to fish for ! With no signs at all, I decided to go for a wander and having walked the whole bank, Paul Taylor was winning with 5 smallish (3lb-4lb) fish, caught up in the water on pellet, Spindle was 2nd with 3 carp – two on the lead and one on the waggler, about 13 or 14 other anglers (including me) all had one fish and the other 7 or 8 were still fish less.

Back at my peg, I sat bite less for another half an hour before catching 2 fish of about 5lb each in consecutive casts. With the match being six hours long, we agreed to have a “Half Time” weigh in and at 2.30pm my 3 fish pulled the needle round to 23-8-0, - 3 pound ahead of Spindle and
8 ounces ahead of Jim to my right. The second half of the match was just a mirror image of the 1st half really, I’m sure the conditions were just too bright and sunny for it to fish well as the only time you could get any signs that fish were about in your peg was when the sun went briefly behind a cloud. Again I had a spell where I had 2 fish in two casts but then sat bite less for an hour. I did have an 8lber in the edge and had my final fish a “Barney Rubble” about 15 minutes form the end. The entertainment was provided by Jim breaking TWO sections (7th and 8th) of his pole when striking into a fish and John Swann going in for a swim (two widths of the lake) to retrieve his top six, which he thought had just come apart but turned out that it had snapped in half. I’ve just been informed by Howard (Marginpig) that John was wearing a rather fetching black thong although it did look a little worn ! For those who know Swanny and can picture what he looked like – I am very sorry !

The Final Match Result was as follows:-

Paul Taylor 77-4-0
Graham Carter 73-14-0
Nick Kenward 73-0-0
Eddie Derek 70-12-0
Jim Heasman 67-4-0
Dave Pearson 55-0-0

We’re off to Old Bury Hill Main Lake on Sunday for another club match and I am really looking forward to putting away the 0.20 and red hydro and hopefully having a days bream fishing on the waggler or pole. I might even sneak down there on Wednesday for a bit of a practice.

Speak Soon

Pikey

2006-07-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

How hot was that ?

With the hottest day ever recorded forecast, someone made the sensible decision to fish the Wednesday Willinghurst Open from 3pm-8pm and whilst I was not happy that we had lost 90 minutes of fishing off the normal length Willinghurst match, it turned out to be an inspired decision.

The match was on the Top Lake and with anglers of the calibre of Mark Goddard, Mark Perkins and local expert (or so he tells me) Don Garnish on the back spit, along with the likes of God (Steve Gardener), Dorking Skipper Steve Sanders (fresh from winning another couple of big team competitions) and Eddie Green (That’s “Old Eddie”) not the young one who can fish a bit ! it would certainly be a tough one to win.

Although the fliers at the moment are Peg 2 or any peg in the back spit, I had drawn Peg 4 and quite fancied it for a few fish, especially as if it does fish, you usually catch a load in the edge to your right and with the match being a late finish, it could well produce. With the pegs well spaced out, I decided to just fish paste at 8 metres on two lines
10 o’clock and 2 o’clock and two edge swims – one each side.

To say the fishing was hard would be an understatement as after 4 hours I’d had 2 carp (one of which was hooked in the tail), one tench, 2 rudd and about 8 roach. However, it wasn’t just me as I’d only seen the odd fish or two being caught – although apparently Alan “The Method” Wood had been catching on Peg 27.

I’d been fishing in the edge to my right and only caught roach when I suddenly decided that I wasn’t going to carry home the GB that I’d mixed up for the previous Sunday and froze cos I didn’t use and thought I’d feed the fish with it. I then dropped in about 10 balls of GB in my edge peg to the left where I hadn’t seen a fish all day. I carried on fishing to the right and caught my first carp there, before glancing over my shoulder to the other inside swim.

IT WAS SOLID ! there must have been about 8 or 9 carp all doing the old “Washing Machine” impression with heads down and tails up ! I dropped in the hurriedly shallowed up paste rig and was soon battling an 8lb carp. After a couple more casts without any bites I switched to the corn rig, kindering in 5 or 6 grains each cast and soon had another 4 fish in the net, including one Barney Rubble ! I then got a bit too brave and fished too close to the rushes as the next fish snagged me and although I eventually got it in, it smashed my float to pieces. With only 10 minutes left, I went back to the paste rig and added another couple of fish which pushed me up to 10 for a weight of 58-0-0.

Nearly everyone caught fish late (which wasn’t surprising given the days temperatures) and Woody made use of his good start to win the match with 86lb, just ahead of Don Garnish with 81lb and Mark Goddard with 80lb as the back spit produced the first three weights.

So , it’s off to Stub Pond for me on Sunday. Hathers is away but Howard (Marginpig) is back from his hols and returning to the action. I’ll see you here on Monday for a full report on the “Battle of the Bloggers”.

Pikey

2006-07-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

End Peg Again !

Regular readers (yes, both of you) may remember that last time Leatherhead DAS went to Priory Farm, I drew THE peg (Peg 34) and won the match with 162lb.
This time I said to Ross on the way there that I fancied drawing Peg 1 this time as I think it is as good as 34 and you don’t get so much stick for drawing the best peg on the lake !

Well, everything went to plan – Brian Wharton drew Peg 34 and got loads of stick whilst I managed to sneak in and draw Peg 1 and only got a few comments from Ross for drawing an end peg yet again !

The “frame” weights at Priory Farm are all taken on floaters now, so I had armed myself with a loaf of bread, a bag of 8mm expanders and a box of cat biscuits. A load of the fish have very small “Parrot” mouths and therefore can’t get a chum mixer in their mouths so the cat biscuits (being much smaller) are ideal. You just prepare them in the same way ie put them in a bag, add water and put them in the fridge overnight.

Ross had caught really well last time fishing corn in the edge, so I set up a rig to fish there as well (although in the end I didn’t even try it). My two floater rigs as usual consisted of a piece of 0.18 G line and a hook. Although this time one was a size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook and the other a size 14 B911.

There’s not a lot more to tell really, the peg is a flier, there were a load of hungry fish in the peg and I switched between bread and cat biscuits to take a first half (the match was split into two halves) 81lb, which put me up with the leaders, 3lb behind Hathers and 11lb behind early leader “Scooter Boy” Kenward..

I must admit to trying a lot harder in the second half as I really wanted to finish in front of Hathers. I managed to get the fish to come in closer and closer and after a while was fishing along the rushes at TWO METRES to hand ! I did change my feeding slightly in the second half and fed more expanders which seemed to get the fish in a feeding frenzy.

I must admit to doing a “Robbo” as well, as I’d psyched myself up for a big last hour and a 5pm finish when suddenly the “All Out” came at 4pm ! That’ll teach me to pay attention when they announce the rules and times before the match !

At the weigh in my afternoon weight of 110 -12-0 boosted my weight to 191-12-0, comfortably ahead of Brian Wharton on Peg 34 with 177-14-0 and Hathers with
177-12-0 I had to feel sorry for Hathers (yeah Right) as this was the second week in a row that he’d had a big weight and was again pipped for 2nd place by 2 ounces !

My next 2 matches see me back at Willinghurst for a wednesday open and then off to Stub Pond on Sunday for another Leatherhead DAS match.

Hope to be writing about another couple of decent results soon

Pikey

2006-07-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

Willinghurst Fishomania

Wednesday saw 130 anglers at Willinghurst for their final chance to qualify for the Fishomania final on 22nd July 2006.

Following some problems with some of the lakes, Old and New lakes were closed which meant that the pegs had to be crammed in on some of the lakes. Not an ideal situation but possibly better than cancelling the whole match.

To win the match, I thought you’d need a draw on Horseshoe, The back spit on the Top Lake or Main Lake but I was more than pleased to draw Peg 10 on the Top Lake. I didn’t expect to win from there but thought I would at least have a days fishing.

I had set my stall out to fish paste at 10 metres and 6 metres and corn in the edge. John Swann had turned up to watch the match and decided to sit behind me with his “Pervy” binoculars – he says he’s got them to watch other anglers on the far bank – but I’m not so sure ! I think the real reason he spent so long at my peg was that there was a young lady sitting with the chap on the next peg and I’m sure that with the weather being so hot, he was hoping she’d take her top off !!!!

Anyway, as the fishery hadn’t been producing big weights in the last week, I thought that you’d probably only need 100-120lb to win which I thought I could manage easily from my peg. After 40 minutes I had 3 fish in the net from the six metre line and then went out on the long line before the hour was up to nab another one – this gave me about 22lb and I was well on schedule to hit my target weight.

However, from then on my match went completely “Tits Up” there were still fish in the peg cos they were blowing but no matter what I did I couldn’t catch anything. I kept my 6 metre line as a paste line but fed some catfood long and although they were blowing over that as well, I just couldn’t get a proper bite – a few liners yes, but nothing to strike at.

Even my “banker” edge peg failed to produce anything but roach and it wasn’t until the final 20 mins that I had another 2 carp and pushed my total weight to 30lb – 6 carp.

The top lake (and even the back spit) had fished hard with Mark Smith (Breambrain) winning the lake with 89-12-0 whilst the Main Lake produced the top weight. Hungarian Attila Szekeres drew the unfancied Peg 24, fished corn in the edge, and included some big fish in his 111-8-0 to just pip Steve Jackson who was on Cherrytree Peg 3 and fished paste over hemp at 10 metres and finished an agonising 14 ounces behind.
Dorking captain Steve Sanders drew one of the fancied island pegs on the main lake and took third place with 104-12-0 of method feedered carp.

If you want to know how the Leatherhead DAS club match at Framfield went on the Sunday then you’ll have to read next months Southern Angler cos Pikey’s Progress is now making an appearance there each month !

Pikey

2006-07-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

No trip to Larford for me !

My final chance to join some of my mates in the Maver Pairs final came at Willinghurst yesterday. This time I was paired with my mate Steve Todd and given a couple of decent draws, I saw no reason why we couldn’t be one of the three pairs qualifying for the final.

However, despite having organised and run the draw I still was unable to sort us out a couple of decent pegs ! – Steve drew Peg 3 on the main lake, which was really the bank you didn’t want, as the rest of it fished quite well and not wishing to be accused of fiddling myself a good peg if I drew one, I asked Geoff Simmons to draw for me – but I wont again - as he picked me out Peg 5 on Cherrytree Lake. For those who know the lake, the peg was the first peg you reach on the shallow side of the island.

Unfortunately the island was just too far away for my little 14 metre Power legion pole so I had to fish a longer line than I would have wanted to fish to the island. My other lines of attack were in the edge to my left and by a big bush to my right. All the pegs were very shallow and I kicked off with a big pot of hemp and corn to the island as it was far too far to try and fish paste and a pot of paste and hemp by the bush. The feed in the edge was also hemp and corn.

I began by fishing paste by the bush until I’d been “Silvered” to death and had two crayfish ! before deciding to try by the island. After being seen off by the roach there as well, I was beginning to think that feeding the hemp may not have been such a good idea and maybe I should just have fed pellet. Corn was just producing roach so I switched over to banded pallet and immediately caught two carp for about 6lb. That swim then died on me before I switched to the bush peg again and this time fed pellet by hand every cast. After about 15 minutes of continuous feeding I had a carp of about 9lb and thought I’d cracked it ! However, this wasn’t to be the case and I then sat biteless for half an hour before deciding that I was clearly going nowhere and as others were catching, I rang Paul to get him to pick me up in the buggy with 90 minutes to go so I could at least sort out the pay out money and have a wander around the other lakes. Half an hour later they had one cheeseburger and a cup of tea less in the clubhouse and I had all the section winners and overall pools money in envelopes ready for the lucky winners. I then went for a wander around the main lake – where Toddy wasn’t catching but Paul Hiller and Will Raison had been. I walked round to abuse Malc Fowler and stayed long enough to seem him catch nothing but the island and then saw Paul Hiller catch an 18lber down the edge !

The Final Results were as follows:-

1. Gavin Clarke Horseshoe 2 124-0-0
2. Ian Covey Old 14 105-0-0
3 Paul Williams Horseshoe 10 99-0-0
4 Will Raison Main 9 95-14-0
5 Paul Hiller Main 14 95-4-0

The three pairs qualifying for the final with a perfect 2 point score were:-

Gavin Clarke and Joe Clark
Paul Hiller and Mark Goddard
Klaus Fix and Simon Fry

Next Saturday sees me on the Willinghurst Fishomania round where I think it could be a dip in the hat job and Sunday sees me trying to beat Hathers 304lb haul at Framfield – all will be revealed here on Monday.

2006-07-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

Back to normal at the Draw !

Following Wednesdays nightmare at Gold Valley, I was really looking forward to Sundays Leatherhead DAS match on the Middle Lake at Willow, despite temperatures of 30 degrees plus being forecast.

It was back to normal at the draw bag as Peg 2 (another end peg and one I’d won from two weeks ago) was to be my residence for the next 5 hours. With loads of room and the wind blowing in to that corner, I really fancied it for a few fish.

I’ve fished the peg a few times in the past and found that I’d caught more fishing paste long (ie at 9 or 10 metres) than short, at 6 or 7. I therefore set up three rigs all to fish paste. One at 9 metres at 2 o’clock, one at 6 metres at 11 o’clock and one just down the shelf to my right.

I began by feeding two big pots of hemp and paste on the long line and started “Plopping” small hard balls of GB on the 6 metre line. After much twitching of the float, it finally went under and I had a bream of about 2lb on the inside line, followed by lots of skimmer indications. I decided to keep feeding the GB but to try the longer line which was like a Jacuzzi. First cast I had an F1 followed by a couple of crucians, however the wind was getting up and making presentation very difficult. I decided to feed again but this time one section shorter to see if I could get the fish to come closer in. This seemed to work as I just plodded on catching the occasional F1 and skimmer.
As things tailed off, I could see John Swann on Peg 25 was catching well and if I was going to catch him, I needed to do something to improve my catch rate. I decided to start feeding GB on the long line as well and this seemed to improve my catch rate considerably. With half an hour to go the wind was getting worse and I was struggling to present the bait properly on the long line. Despite having never caught a fish in the edge before on the peg, I’d been feeding it and as I thought I was probably 20lb+ behind Swanny, I had nothing to lose. Fishing very very soft paste, I started catching a few F1’s, infact when I cupped in the paste, it reached the bottom and almost immediately the float started moving to one side – a swift strike resulted in a few feet of black hydro coming out as the fish had taken the bait on the drop.

At the end, I was gutted that I hadn’t gone down the edge earlier as John weighed in 58-0-0 to win the match closely followed by my 55-13-0 ! Whilst I’d had a nice day, I still felt that it was a match that I should have won. Peter Turnbull was third with 33lb but a lot of the others struggled as all the F1’s seemed to be up our end of the lake.

Tomorrow sees me at Willinghurst for my last chance to qualify for the Maver Pairs Final. I’m hoping for a draw in the shade ! and I’ll let you know what happens on Thursday.

Speak to you soon

Dave P.

2006-07-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

Getting It Wrong !

Right, this should be a short blog.

Went to Gold Valley to partner my mate Ross in the Maver Pairs. We decided to try and fish to our strengths (Yes, that was a mistake) and I drew peg 91 on Syndicate.
With it not being an end peg and not being allowed to use paste, you could see that I had little chance of success !

Whilst there were a few fish up in the water, I chose to bag up by fishing just over the shelf with meat over hemp. After 3 hours without a bite, I had to stop fishing for half an hour and just sit on the bank cos I think I had sun stroke ! I recovered enough to fish the last hour and a bit but still never had a bite. Didn’t hang around for any results as I felt so ill. End of Blog !

2006-06-26T08:51:00.000-07:00

Bashing the Blogger !

If Jon Arthur didn’t already write an article in Match Fishing titled “End Peg” then I think I’d have to change the title of this from Pikey’s Progress having drawn the end peg yet again on the Leatherhead DAS match at Stubb Pond on Sunday.

The turnout was down considerably due to all the saddos who would rather watch the football than fish a match – are these people normal ? Anyway, the good news was that we could now fish every other peg and although we had to use the fishery pellets, we could use anything on the hook that we wanted – this meant that I could use both of my own paste mixes and I was very confident of catching well, especially when I drew peg 28 which on the day was an end peg. I also had the Northern Bloke (Margin Pig) at the next peg so this was an opportunity to put him back in his place as he seems to think that he is the new “Paste Ace” having caught one or two fish on it lately !

I don’t fish Stubb Pond very often as there aren’t many well attended matches on it, plus the carp are very big and mental ! I decided to fish 0.20 and red hydro with a B911 hook to give me a chance of at least landing a few fish and fortunately for me the depth up my end of the lake was shallower than the early pegs so I was able to use my normal Maver 4x14 paste floats rather than the bigger ones I’d bought specially.

I decided to fish three lines, one down the shelf to my left, one straight out in front of me at a comfortable 9 metres and right in the edge to my right. I fed each line with a big pot of hemp / pellet at the start and started at 9 metres with “Meat Paste” on the hook. Howard was in to a fish almost straight away and within 5 minutes I’d hooked my first “Submarine”. Off it went to the far bank but I managed to stop it just before it reached the sanctuary of the bush opposite, it then veered left as it made another bid for freedom, luckily I managed to hang on and a couple of minutes later netter a fish of about 15lb ! Why do you always hook a giant fish first cast before your tackle has been tested ? Still at least I now knew it was up to the task !

Two more small fish (5lb) followed quickly before another “Small Whale” intervened. So with an hour gone I’d had about 35-40lb in the net and was quite enjoying myself, especially as I now knew that as long as I just took my time, I had no problem playing and landing even the biggest fish. By switching between the long and short line, and by swapping between various consistencies of “Meat Paste” and “Green Paste”, I managed to keep picking off the odd fish – as did Howard at the next peg. As this was a long match, we had to weigh in after 3 hours and after the “Half Time” weigh I was leading the top end of the lake with 94-8-0 followed by Howard on 56lb and Ross on 55lb. I didn’t know how the other end of the lake had fished but hadn’t heard that anyone was “bagging” so expected to have a healthy lead going into the second half.

Whilst I am all for fish welfare etc etc the fact is that putting fish back in a peg halfway through the match does nothing for your catch rate ! I sat bite less for 55 minutes before landing my first “Barney Rubble” of the afternoon session on my down the shelf line. I then had a nightmare time after being invaded with skimmers and had to switch to the longer line to get away from them. Although I expected to bag up in the late afternoon, the fishing actually got worse and I was only really saved by a couple of 15 pounders in the last half an hour. The strange thing was, that despite feeding the edge peg all day, I never had a sniff from a carp and all I had was indications from roach and skimmers.

At the weigh in, I was pleasantly surprised to weigh 74lb odd as I felt that I’d really struggled in the afternoon – nevertheless, it was still enough to beat the young wipper snapper at the next peg – in both sessions !

The final match result was:-.

Dave Pearson 168-8-0
Jim Heasman 124-0-0 (including a 16lb sturgeon)
Ross Nursey 121-12-0
Howard Corner 121-4-0

Wednesday sees me at Gold Valley for the Maver Pairs – some of you I will see there but if not I’ll report back here on Thursday.

2006-06-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

No holes this time !

Following Sundays “great carp escape” at Framfield, which I’m now convinced cost me dearly, I spent a good five minutes at Willow Park yesterday checking my nets for any potential exit routes !

Having fished the middle lake at Willow on Saturday I was hoping to draw the same peg again as I was confident that I could catch a lot more fish this time. As I was conducting the draw, more and more pegs were being drawn and Peg 20 was still in the bag ! With two pegs left Chris Love then drew for me and picked me Peg 2, which left Martin Marrison with peg 20. Doh !

With only 18 pegs in on the lake, I didn’t actually mind where I drew and whilst Peg 2 isn’t really a noted peg, I quite fancied it for a few fish as it does give you a lot of room. For company I had Willow Park regular Dougie Graves at the next peg although fortunately there was a great big bush between us so at least I couldn’t see him ! Although to be fair, it would only have to a small shrub really for me not to be able to see him.

At the moment, the small lakes at Willow are for me an out and out paste attack infact all I take with me now is 1 Kilo of groundbait, a bit of hemp and some paste. This leaves others to fish for the skimmers with caster, maggot, corn, pellet etc etc whilst I target the F1’s, crucians and carp, although I do catch the odd big skimmer on paste as well.

I set up to fish 2 inside lines (one by the bush and one to my right) and two longer lines, one at 6 metres straight out in front and one at about 9 metres at 2 o’clock. All rigs were maver paste floats, to 0.16 and gamakatsu pellet hooks with the inside rigs having 4x12 floats and the longer lines having 4x14. I began by feeding a pot of hemp and a few pieces of paste on all lines – I’m not sure yet whether the hemp helps but I’m sure it doesn’t do any harm. I then started on the 9 metre line and fed a small ball of GB every cast. At first the peg was full of small skimmers – which are a nightmare when fishing with paste and to make matters worse, I could hear Dougie catching a few F1’s at the next peg. However, I kept persevering with big bits of paste and after twenty five minutes I had my first F1, a fish of about 2lb. I have a target of 5 F1’s an hour at Willow, as this would give a total weight of between 45-50lb which will usually be there or thereabouts when the final weigh in is completed.
By the end of the first hour I’d had 4 big F1’s, a crucial carp (using Dickie Carr speak) and a few little skimmers, giving me approx 10lb. Despite trying the 3 other lines, I could only catch on the 9 metre line, perhaps because that was the only line that I’d been feeding consistently since the off. Things slowed down for the next couple of hours, but by “messing about” with my paste – especially making it softer so it was almost like soup, I could still keep the odd fish or two coming whilst most others on the lake were struggling. One strange thing about willow is that in my last 5 trips, I have on every occasion caught 1 bream of about
2-8-0. When you catch it you think you will then catch a few more but you never do, I can’t believe that all the Willow Park bream swim around on their own can they ? In a lot of the matches I have fished recently, (not just at Willow Park) everyone catches a few fish at the start and in the last couple of hours, but the people who do well are those that can keep putting something in their net in the middle couple of hours.

With two hours to go the skimmer bubbles disappeared and the constant movement of the float ceased as I sensed that something had pushed the skimmers out of the peg. A couple of minutes later I had a “Proper” paste bite and enough black hydro came out to tell me that this was no F1 ! A couple of minutes later, a bonus 8lb carp was gracing my landing net, followed very shortly afterwards by his smaller brother at around 6lb. Another carp of around 3lb was soon added to my total but then as quickly as they arrived, they disappeared and the skimmers reappeared.
It was then just a case of picking up the odd F1 or 2 in the final hour.
I like the fishing at Willow, it isn’t an easy place to fish but I think it rewards those who are able to chop and change things during the match to try and keep in contact with the fish.

Dave Barrett had kindly given me a lift, but was in a hurry to get away as he had a meeting to attend in the evening, therefore I’d already worked out the money and put it in envelopes before the start – I’d also drawn the scales so having packed up in record time I grabbed the scales and made our way to the far end of our section to start the weigh in.

The first few pegs weighed in about 25lb then Russ Berryman put 49-8-0 on the scales which included two “Bonus” carp which went 14lb between them, fish that I thought were going to help him to beat me as I thought I had about 35-40lb - although I am rubbish at estimating weights..

Russ was top weight until we reached the end pegs, Dougie had 11lb (and owes me £1 – no I haven’t forgotten Dougie) and then my silver fish net of crucians and skimmers went 7lb odd before the other net bottomed out the 30lb scales. Looking at the fish in the net, I thought that despite originally thinking that Russ had walked the match, this could actually be quite close. On the last weigh, I needed 14lb to pip Russ and was well pleased when the needle settled on 19lb as to beat Russ on a carp venue is an achievement in itself.

The final weights were as follows.

Dave Pearson Peg 2 53-12-0
Russ Berryman Peg 11 49-8-0
Kevin Baptist Peg 15 33-10-0
Dean Locke Peg 13 26-2-0
Steve Barnett Peg 16 24-12-0

That’s it for me, for a week, I’m off on holiday to the west country for a while and my next match report will be on the Leatherhead DAS club match at Stubb Pond. If the fishomania match there is anything to go by, it’s going to be a barrel of fun.

See you soon

Pikey

2006-06-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Too Old for Match fishing !

I’ve just completed another “Double Header” weekend and have now come to the conclusion that I’m getting old ! Although I’m only a sprightly 46 – yes, I know I look a lot younger, after Saturdays match at Willow and yesterdays “Hauling Session” at Framfield, I was pleased to come back to work for a rest !

Saturday was the annual “Southern Inter Site” match at Willow Park, contested by Total fishing.com, Maggot Drowners and Angling Forums. I captained the 15 man AF team as nobody else would do it and my team consisted of about three people who use the AF site, some anglers who couldn’t get in the Total fishing side and some of my mates who like fishing Willow Park !

Having fished the lakes on Wednesday with the weather being almost the same, I knew it wouldn’t be easy fishing as it was just too hot and the carp were more interested in sun bathing than feeding. I drew Peg 20 on middle lake (a peg I’d never fished before but was more than happy to draw it) and had already decided to make it a paste attack.

Dan Cooper who fishes Willow regularly had told me to fish by the edge of the Willow tree and not underneath it by the straw bales as it was snaggy and I also set up to fish in the edge to my right and at 9 metres straight out in front. On the hooter, I fed all three lines with a pot of hemp and a few bits of paste, went straight out on the 9 metre line and sat there for 20 minutes without a sign of a fish ! With about twenty minutes gone, I decided to try the other lines I’d fed but whilst shipping out, the seventh section that I’d taken off and left on the bank behind me got caught by a gust of wind and deposited in the lake to the right of my platform. As I shipped back as quickly as I could I watched agonisingly as the section sank before my eyes before I had a chance to try and grab it. As I’d fed a couple of lines that were further away than 7 sections, I had no choice but to go in for it, so off came the trousers, trainers and socks and I was soon lowering myself in off the side of my platform., dressed only in a T shirt and boxers ! The water was a lot deeper than I thought – nearly reaching my waist however, after the initial shock, it was actually very pleasant and I did contemplate staying in for a while. Fortunately the section hadn’t gone far and I was able to scoop it up with my foot and I was soon back on dry land. First put in by the Willow, the float shot under and my first F1 was on it’s way to the net. I carried on picking up the odd fish but the tow was making fishing paste very difficult as I had to hold the float on a tight line and a couple of times I could feel the fish take the bait before ejecting it. I kept feeding and trying the right hand margin and did pick off the occasional fish there as well but they didn’t seem to be there in any numbers. As the match went on, the peg seemed to be getting worse and despite Dan’s words of wisdom, I decided to set up a rig to fish right under the tree as it was a decent depth and I thought the tow might be less there.
Out came the H10 with red hydro and an 0.18 rig. Having fed a pot of feed, first cast I hooked an F1, and led it gently away from the willow before netting a two pounder.
This was easy I thought, I’ll probably start bagging big time now . Second cast I had a bite and when I struck, the whole lot went solid – after much pulling this way and that, I eventually had to get up and walk over to try and recover my rig. I don’t know what it was under there but I only managed to get my float back as the rest of the line was solid. As this was the only place I could get a bite now, I tackled up again and tried a little bit further away from the bale. One very bemused two pound bream soon followed – not really a fair fight on red hydro, then the next fish I hooked resulted in another snagged rig and no hook this time. I then gave up under the tree and went down the edge to my right. I think if I draw the peg again when its still hot, I’ll go for a paddle before the match and try and get the snags out, although they might just be roots from the tree. In the last hour I started to catch the odd fish in the edge but by this time Mike Jameson (Omega Mike) was motoring at the next peg and I thought he was going to be hard to beat.

The final results were:

Mike Jameson Total Fishing Middle 21 56-6-0
Russell Grimes Total Fishing Middle 2 52-0-0
Giles Cochrane Angling Forums Middle 13 51-8-0
Nicky Davies Total Fishing Big 76 46-10-0
Dave Pearson Angling Forums Middle 20 39-5-0

Teams:-

Total Fishing. Com 38 Pts
Angling Forums 34 pts
Maggot Drowners 17 pts.

Well done to Andy Gregory and his TF team, I look forward to trying for revenge next year.

A lesson for everyone !

Having had a tough day in the heat on Saturday, I was not really looking forward to Sunday’s Leatherhead DAS match at Framfield as the place is a real “Carp Soup” venue and you just know that if it’s fishing at all well then you aren’t going to get a moments rest.

Unfortunately because of where Framfield is situated – with the only way there being down the A22 which is a nightmare to travel on after the match cos all the traffic from the coast comes up it, the turnouts aren’t very good for our club matches. Anyway, only 13 of us turned up on what was going to be another hot day. With the pegs well spread out, this was looking like a good bagging day.

I drew peg 58 at the top of the lake and set up three rigs, one to fish paste in the edge and the other two rigs involved a three foot piece of line and a hook ! The only baits I had with me were paste (surprise, surprise) some dry dog biscuits and two loaves of bread. I thought I’d have to wait for the fish to come up on top so the plan was to fish paste at the start and then switch over to floaters when the fish were confident and feeding. On the whistle I picked up my paste rig started to ship out and threw some dog biscuits in front of me – immediately 4 carp appeared on the surface and ate the biscuits ! I didn’t even bother shipping the paste out and immediately swapped over to the floater rig with a bit of bread on the hook.

Although there were loads of fish in the peg and they were eating all the free floaters, they weren’t exactly easy to catch and after catching a few, they started to get a bit finicky. I even tried paste in the edge, hoping I could catch faster but after 3 small carp, 4 foul hookers that I lost and about a million line bites, I gave it up as a bad deal. I’d seen Ross a couple of pegs away was catching close in by the plants that grow out in the water – not being a water plant expert, I couldn’t tell you what they were ! So I fed a few biscuits down the edge and placed a baited hook alongside them. Straight away, a big pair of lips came up and ate the bread ! and from then on, it was a fish a cast until the half time weigh in.
At the break I’d had 80-4-0 which was unfortunately well behind the leaders, who were Hathers 131lb, Woody 121lb and Ross with 115lb,

The second half began very slowly (as you would expect having just put back a load of fish in the peg) however, the constant drip feeding of biscuits soon had the fish back up on top and feeding with a vengeance. As we moved into the last 2 hours of the match, I don’t think I’ve ever caught faster as I got into a steady rhythm of bait the hook, feed a few biscuits lower the bread onto the surface, strike, lead the fish away from the edge, pull the fish up in the water and net it. I did have little spells where I missed a fish or two but counted my fish in the last 15 minutes and had 11 carp !

At the weigh in my first net went 50lb then I had trouble lifting out the second net until Ross came over to give me a hand. The second net went 133lb giving me a total weight for the whole match of 262-0-0. I couldn’t work out why I’d put only 50lb in one net and so much in the other until we discovered a big hole in the bottom of the net ! I knew I’d put more in one net than the other but I’m certain that I didn’t put 80lb more in one of them ! I usually check my own nets before putting them in but just assumed these would be ok as they were the fisheries.

I then had the “pleasure” of watching Hathers weigh in 304lb from one of the early pegs to take the match ahead of Ross, 292lb and Woody 275lb with me coming 4th with 262lb and they only paid 3 !!!!!

Framfield is a superb bagging venue, I wouldn’t want to fish it all the time but 3 or 4 times a season is just about right and I can’t wait to get back there with Leatherhead in July. Guess who’ll be checking their nets next time ?

Wednesday sees me back at Willow Park as I am running an open there before the Maver Pairs and the superleague at the weekend.

Check out here on Thursday for the details.

Pikey

2006-06-08T02:05:00.000-07:00

No Carp - A pleasant change.

With the big Inter website challenge at the weekend, a bit of practice was called for on the Wednesday, so a motley crew of Total fishing.com members, people who wanted to practice for some forthcoming matches and some who just like fishing Willow Park turned up on what was going to be a very hot and windless days fishing.

With 22 anglers booked in, I spoke to Nick White who now runs the fishery and agreed that we could spread the pegs out a bit on Middle lake and put a section of 6 pegs on the small lake as well. With me due to fish Middle lake on Saturday and needing the practice, I then promptly drew peg 23 on Small !

As this was really just a practice session for me, I decided to just see if I could catch enough fish on paste to do any good. For company, I had Giles Cochrane at the next peg (Peg 25) so I knew this was going to be quite a test, my paste versus his worm and caster and whilst I was confident I could compete. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I set up three rigs, one to fish at 7 metres one to fish to my left, just down the shelf at about 4 metres and one right in the edge to my left – as it turned out, I never had a fish on any other line than the 7 metre line. All my rigs were my usual paste rigs but on 0.16 line as I wasn’t fishing for double figure fish this week !

After an hour I was struggling with only a couple of skimmers and 1 F1 in the net and I was dreading having to write this blog, especially as Giles was catching well and out of the corner of my eye, all I could see was him lifting into skimmers and his elastic coming out as he shipped back ..aarrggghhhh ! As we entered the second hour I had a run of 8 fish in 8 casts (two crucians, a couple of decent skimmers and 3 or 4 F1’s) and I thought I was really going to start bagging. However, the bites soon dried up and I was really struggling. In hindsight, what I should have done was to fish a “Small Paste” rig with a normal float and a small piece of paste on a size 16 hook – I would then have caught a few smaller skimmers to help build a weight whilst waiting for the F1’s to come back.
I did set up said rig later and caught a few fish on it but I should have done it from the start. The trouble was though was that as the match went on, using a big bit of paste I had loads of indications and only the odd proper bite but when I used the “Small Paste” rig I couldn’t get a bite at all – this was the first time I’d ever had this happen since starting to use paste and I really couldn’t work out what was happening.

As we entered the last couple of hours, I’d heard that not a lot was being caught on Middle Lake and I thought that if I could just string a few fish together then I might be in with a chance of a pick up. Although I knew Giles was out of site, especially as he had just started catching well in the edge ! By switching between the two rigs I managed to pick off the odd fish, then with half an hour to go, for some reason I decided to try a BIG bit of paste, one that only just fitted into the pole cup ! First cast, the float settled nicely, sat there for a couple of seconds and then buried !
I soon had a decent F1 in the net and more followed in what was a hectic finish to the match. I netted my final fish on the whistle then had to rush off to the clubhouse to collect the scales !

Although it had fished quite hard, there were some reasonable weights when you remember that it isn’t a carp fishery and nobody is going to catch 100lb.

Final Result:

1 Giles Cochrane Small 25 49-2-0
2 Dave Pearson Small 23 39-14-0
3 Shaun Barnett Middle 16 34-14-0
4 Dave Barrett Middle 23 31-12-0 (including a 16lb carp)
5 Paul Holland Middle 18 31-2-0
6 Steve Barnett Middle 4 22-14-0

Godon Curl and Dougie Graves, I have your section money !
Remind me next time I see you.

So, that’s it until the weekend – I have the big Inter site match on Saturday and then a day’s floater fishing with Leatherhead DAS at Framfield on Sunday.

Have a great weekend, don’t get too sunburnt and I speak to you all on Monday.

Pikey

2006-06-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

Be Prepared !

I hate fishing matches on venues that I haven’t practised on or fished for a while as you often mess up completely, and I think the Leatherhead DAS club match on Sunday was one of those !

I’ve not fished at Gold Valley for a while and the info I had gleaned from others who have fished it recently suggested it was going to be either method feeder or “Up in the water” fishing – probably my two least favourite tactics !

There were two things that messed me up for the day, the first was that I drew Peg 101 in the corner, a decent peg that we’d seen a few fish in before the start but not a “Normal” Gold valley peg as the tactics there would be completely different to the rest of the lake. The second was that on arriving I was told that despite what we had originally been told, we could now use paste ! Whilst this was welcome news, all my paste and paste making stuff was sitting at home and the alternative was to knock some up from some GB I had with me – which I personally don’t think works half as well as I can’t seem to get the texture right. Not wanting to complicate matters, I decided to fish both sides in the edge and out in front at 9 metres and that was it ! I could have set up other gear (and hind sight shows me that I possibly should have done so), but I didn’t.

First put in towards the corner to my right fishing paste I foul hooked a fish that ran all the way along the right hand bank, pulling out about 30 yards of red hydro before swimming off with my whole rig, second cast I foul hooked another that went nowhere, I gently shipped the pole back and could see under the water and it was a fish of about 8lb then when I went to gently ease it to the top, the hook pulled out. NOT REALLY THE START I HAD BEEN HOPING FOR ! I then swapped between the edge and nine metres in front and in the next 50 minutes I had 7 carp ranging from 4lb-6lb.

From that point onwards, it all went a bit “Tits Up” as the fished seemed to stop feeding and I’d sit for ages without a bite then foulhook one that would charge around the peg before coming off ! Nevertheless I ended the first half of the match (10am-1pm) with 37-8-0 which was the top weight so far – but only 1lb in front of Melvin Gray (Meatbasher) on Peg 120.

As I walked back to my peg for the second half of the match, I could see that a load of fish had taken up residence on the top in peg 102 and fancied him to catch a few in the afternoon. I carried on fishing at 9 metres except for one little spell of trying to catch shallow at 12.5 metres where I had one fish. The afternoon was a bit of an anticlimax as I thought I would sack up as the match progressed but I finally finished up with just 6 carp and a total weight of 70-0-0 for the whole match.

Jim Heasman won the match with 129lb from peg 123 (the far end peg in the match), followed by Melvin with 109lb. I’m not too sure the next positions as we didn’t hang around too long at the end !

The match was the first one I‘ve fished for ages where I finished the match thinking that I could and should have done a lot better. I was probably only 3 or 4 fish away from being in the frame and think in hindsight (yes it is a wonderful thing) that I should have set up a waggler.

Nevertheless, these things happen occasionally and I’ve now got Willow Park to look forward to tomorrow – I don’t expect to do that well as I am really only using it as a practice for our Intersite Match on Saturday.

Tune in here on Thursday to see how it goes tomorrow as I expect I’ll draw a flier and win !

Pikey

2006-06-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

I love Blogging !

Since starting to blog a couple of months ago, I can’t stop catching, am drawing better than Rolf Harris and my average weight for the past 9 matches is 112lb !

Yesterdays match at Willinghurst was on Old and New lakes and saw me draw Peg 20 on New lake and with the wind blowing down that end, it was one of the favoured draws. Each week I take my usual “Green Swim Stim Paste” that I know works and one other experimental paste as I continue my quest for the ultimate paste that fish can’t resist. I’d been reading an article by Steve Ringer about dark pellets being better than light pellets in coloured water, so for this weeks paste experiment I added some red dye to see if it made any difference. The base mix for this one was “Silly Bait” as if you just mix it so it is damp, it breaks down really quickly. To this I added some salmon fry crumb and some crazy bait gold GB and some predator plus to colour it red.

With the wind blowing in to my end of the lake, I was confident of catching a few fish and with the wind being quite strong I decided to just fish one line at 7 metres straight out in front and one in the edge to my left at about 11 metres. I began with my usual ploy of cupping in a pot of hemp with a few bits of paste in it on both lines and started at 7 metres. After 5 incident free minutes, I tried a piece of red paste in the margin peg. Fifty minutes later, I was well on target for my Willinghurst target of “Five fish an hour” with seven carp that probably went at least 50lb as I didn’t have a fish under 7lb. As usual, things slowed down for the next couple of hours, I had one fish out in front of me but had to wait ages for a bite and I also found that by adding an extra section and fishing at 12 metres, I was able to catch a few more fish. This coupled with a switch to corn every now and then resulted in me putting a few fish in the net during the quiet period, and at 6-7lb+ each, they soon build up a weight. When the fish started feeding later in the match I fished corn and if I started getting roach trouble, I just switched rigs and used a big bit of paste instead. I continued to catch until the end of the match and was confident that I had caught more than the 163lb I had last Wednesday from the top lake.

Having packed away my gear, I grabbed the board and helped Bob Ward weigh in.
Top weight on the other bank was 45lb then I weighed in 3 nets worth for 184-4-0.
Steve Barnett drew the corner peg 8 and had caught all day on corn for 160lb and the “Little Mens” peg to peg battle finished in a draw as Gary Hamilton (New 13) tied with Paul Holland (New 16) with 106-0-0 each for a tie of third place.

Nick Stunt had won the Old lake with 104lb – some on the method and some on paste from Peg 17. So that was it, another Wednesday win and a welcome £120 in the old “Sky Rocket”. As Gary Hamilton was doing a feature for Advanced Pole Angling, you might also see my happy smiling face in the magazine in a month or two – so you can all look forward to that !

Sunday sees a welcome return to Gold Valley for a Leatherhead DAS club match which will be interesting as I haven’t fished Syndicate Lake for years.

Check out the result on here next Monday.

Pikey

2006-05-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

Two in two days !

Well, what a frustrating weekend that was.

Saturday saw me on my first visit to Monk Lakes near Maidstone for the Maver Pairs match. I was due to fish with Steve Todd but he discovered he was double booked and so Ross Nursey stepped in as an able (or so I thought) replacement - Only joking Ross !

I'd had no shortage of useful information from both Mike Jameson (Omega Mike) and Dave Baptist (The Monk) but decided in my wisdom, as I often do to try something a bit different as there is little point in going to a fishery for the first time and trying to copy those that have been fishing there week in, week out. Our plan of action was to feed hemp and meat at five or six metres and fish meat or pellet on the hook with the back up of paste if needed.

On the day, I drew peg 10 on lake 1 - not a brilliant draw I was told by the locals but it was an end peg and despite the wind blowing into the other end, I was more than happy with the peg. Ross drew Peg 84 on Lake 2 next to The Monk so he would have his work cut out.

Having heard of the number of silver fish in the lakes, I dug out my trusty old "Willow Park" whip that is elasticated with blue hydro and I use it at Willow for crucians and skimmers.
Rig number one was 0.14 G line, a 4x14 carpa porth float (although I think they take more shot than any other 4x14 float I've ever owned) and a size 16 PR21. Rig 2 was my usual paste rig but this time with 0.16 line.

The wind was quite strong and Mike had warned me about the tow, so rather than loose feed, I put all my meat and hemp in some green swim stim GB and fed a small hard ball every cast. After 10 minutes I had my first fish, a tench of about 4 ounces which I netted (as per the fishery rule) but things were very slow around the lake although Mark Murdoch was catching at 3 metres at the next peg.

I swapped over to the paste rig on the same 5 metre line and had a carp of about 1lb straight away. I then had a load of “iffy bites" and a couple of foulhookers which told me that the fish weren't really having the paste properly.

I then did what I have often done in these conditions and that is to put a very small piece of paste on my other rig - the paste, maybe a bit bigger than a swanshot is much stiffer so I can ship it out without having to use a cup. First cast the float slide away and I had soon netted my first stillwater barbel, a fish of about 8 ounces which fought like a 4 pounder. Next cast I had a carp of about 2 pound and having seen about 20 feet of blue hydro, I decided that a change of tops was in order. Luckily I'd elasticated the match kit of my pole with white hydro the previous week so I ditched the whip and fished my power legion over the same line. That was much better as it wasn't too strong for the skimmers and barbel I was catching and it had the required amount of control for the carp. I continued to catch on and off until the last hour when I trashed my rig and the "identical" one I put on didn't seem to be working at all (do they ever !). As I knew I needed a good last hour, I went for broke and fished the "Proper" paste rig and added a number of carp - including a 4lb ghostie in the final 60 minutes.

I hadn't seen anyone else catching much round the lake but thought it would be tight between me and Mark at the next peg (but didn't say anything cos the last time I told someone it was going to be close between us, they beat me by 120lb - remember Willinghurst a couple of Blogs ago ?).

Anyway, when the scales arrived there was a 96lb and an 83lb already, so I knew I wasn't going to win the section. Mark weighed in 64lb and then I had 65lb !

Ross had not had a good day, weighing 18lb so we weren't going to the final, although two of mates were as I think Barry Upperton and Zak Brown won the pairs – but due to the Bank holiday the fishing papers haven’t published the results yet. Oh yes, Mike Jameson (Omega Mike) and his partner Colin Wood also qualified, well done chaps.

Sunday saw me back at Willinghurst for the Sussex Worm Breeders Winter League.
Whilst I don’t usually fish the league, they were a team short so I spoke to Paul Chatfield who has the pleasure of organising the league and volunteered to put a Willinghurst team in.
All I did was pick some people off the list of anglers who had booked in for the Sunday open, so my team consisted of:- Me, Don Garnish, Russ Berryman, Steve Collins and Dean Locke.

The draw was very strange as rather that use the Willinghurst permanent pegs, they had repegged the venue with numbers 1-85 therefore when we drew, nobody had a clue what peg you were really on ! The only one we knew was that pegs 1-17 were on xmas tree – although Don wishes they weren’t as he drew peg 10 at the far end and weighed in a stunning 2 chub for 9 ounces ! My draw saw me on Peg 78 which we worked out could be very close to the best peg on the fishery – Peg 22 on the top lake and the first in the back spit. The peg has produced about five 200lb+ weights in the past 6 matches with 296lb off it the day before !
Not only that but it was also the Golden Peg !!!!!

For me it was close – but no coconut as crossing the bridge at the end of the back spit I could see that my Peg was permanent peg 21, one out from the flier but nevertheless still a very good peg and I was more than happy with it.

I have drawn the peg a number of times and chose to fish paste at about 7 metres straight out in front of me and also down the edge to my left where it is a lovely depth. The one thing I have found at Willinghurst is that you need a paste that breaks down quickly as the fish don’t seem to be too interested in a big ball of the stuff sitting on the bottom. I’d used a new paste last week and having caught 163lb and won the match, I thought I’d use the same mix again.
Unfortunately I put in too much of the “smelly pellet” additive and this made it far too stodgy and wouldn’t break down. The only solution was to mix it almost runny so it wouldn’t sit in a lump on the bottom, not an ideal solution but needs must sometimes. To cut a long story short, I didn’t have a fish on the 7 metre paste line but did catch a few down the edge on paste. When “Carp O Clock” arrived with about 2 hours to go, I switched over to corn down the edge and started to catch a few fish. I thought I might have enough to win the lake but nobody knew who was in which section as some of the pegs on the lake were in with sections on other lakes, so we just weighed in and waited to get back to the clubhouse to see who had finished where. I weighed in 89lb to win the main lake from Paul Taylor who had 66lb but young Eddie Green on peg 22 had 121lb not a brilliant weight from the peg but enough to win him the match and the Golden Peg money ! Jake Marshall (Adrian Marshall’s son) did well from Peg 25 in the back spit to weigh in 93lb but was disappointed to have lost a lot of fish that he thought would have given him a win.

Back at the clubhouse it turned out that I was 3rd in my 17 man section (beaten by the two “Back Spit” weights), Russ was third in his with 84lb from Peg 10 on the Old lake, Dean won his section (and finished 2nd overall) with 110lb from unfancied Peg 2 on the New Lake, whilst Don’s 9 ounces only gave him 4 points and Steve Collins finished up with 7 points from Horseshoe Lake – peg 11.

I’ll update this when the results are published but I think we were 3rd of the 17 teams competing.

All in all, I had an enjoyable weekends fishing but a very frustrating one.
I can’t wait to get back to Monks Lake cos I think it will suit my style of fishing but for now, I’ve got another open at Willinghurst to fish tomorrow and a trip to Gold Valley for the next Leatherhead DAS club match on Sunday and I’m going for three wins in a row !

Have a look on here on Thursday for tomorrows result, I think it is my turn for Peg 22 but to be honest, the pegging on Wednesdays is always nicely spread out and I never really mind where I draw .

See you soon

Pikey

2006-05-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

The run continues !

Is there really a drought in the South of England cos it hasn’t stopped raining down here for the last week !

Wednesday saw me at a very wet and windy Willinghurst and praying for a draw with the wind behind me ! The first part of my plan was successfully completed as with the match being all on the top lake, I drew Peg 25 on the back spit – not only a good peg but also one where the wind was favourable.

I stuck to my usual Willinghurst plan of “Keep it Simple” by just choosing to fish paste at
9 metres and down both edges. I did think that maybe I should also have set up a waggler to fish tight across but thought that feeding at 9 metres would soon pull the fish away from the far bank if I didn’t feed anything over there.

Carole (my better half) had gone out to visit one of her friends the night before so I’d spent an evening stinking the house out with various paste experiments – therefore giving me lots of choices of bait for the match.

My target at Willinghurst now is 5 fish an hour as with the size of the fish and the fact that the matches are all 6 hours, it will give you well over 100lb.
I began as usual by cupping in some hemp and paste on the paste line and some hemp and corn down the edge and the fish were immediately over the paste line. In the first hour, not a lot seemed to be happening around the lake but I was on target for my 5 fish an hour and even better, I hadn’t been plagued by foul hookers as Nick Stunt to my left had. By switching about between a couple of different paste recipes and different textures, even when sport tailed off as it always does, I still managed to string a few bites together and the fish certainly liked the paste as my peg was like a Jacuzzi as the fish grubbed about on the bottom eating every last piece of it !

Looking round the lake, Russ Berryman was catching well on Peg 4 down the edge on corn, Don was catching the odd fish or two on Peg 12 although he said he wasn’t ! I could also see Eddie Green on the form peg (Peg 22) netting a few and Woody behind me was also catching the odd fish or two on the method. Although the weather forecast was for frequent showers, I hate fishing under a brolly and sat in the rain until the heavens really started to open before deciding that enough was enough. I unzipped my hardcase rod bag only to find that I’d left my brolly at home having left it out to dry following Sunday’s downpour. What a plonker, I just spent the rest of the match making out I was “well hard” sitting out in the rain whilst others cowered under their brollys.

With a 65lb per net rule in operation at Willinghurst, I put in my third net with an hour and a half to go and I expected the last part of the match to be the best bit as the fish usually really get their heads down. I had a couple of quick looks down the edge but didn’t have a sign in either side and with the fish still blowing on the paste line I thought I’d just stick it out there until the end of the match. However, all didn’t go to plan as Derek “The Bok” White turned up and whilst he was standing with me, I started to miss bites and foul hook fish as the fish seemed to become very cagey indeed and I ended the match with only six or seven fish in my third net when I’d been expecting considerably more. Nevertheless, I’d had a nice days fishing and found a new paste that I think is going to work well.

The moment of truth arrived as the scales moved round the lake and finally came up with the following result:-

1st Dave Pearson (Me) Peg 25 163-12-0
2nd Russ Berryman Peg 4 158-4-0
3rd Don Garnish Peg12 123-0-0
4th Nick Stunt Peg 26 120-0-0
5th Eddie Green Peg 22 115-8-0
6th Mark Smith Peg 13 113-0-0
7th Steve Collins Peg 2 112-0-0

Eddie actually had about 130lb but had about 80lb in one net which is then awarded the limit of 65lb only – an expensive mistake cos it cost him 3rd place but he couldn’t say he didn’t know the rules cos he fishes there 3 times a week !

My next matches are the Maver Pairs with my mate Ross at Monks Lakes on Saturday and a return to Willinghurst on the Sunday.

Have a great weekend whatever you are doing and return here for the weekend update sometime Monday.

Cheers

Pikey

2006-05-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

A damp day at the Priory !

The second Leatherhead DAS match of the season was at Priory Lake at Redhill, a lake that is solid with small carp up to 3lb with a few bigger fish that occasionally put in an appearance. To win, you need 100lb+ and from my past experience (1 match last year) you need to catch on floaters. However, the problem is that loads of the fish there have very small mouths so you can’t fish big baits as the fish just push them around and can’t get them in their mouths. With floaters, the local’s solution is to use
small cat biscuits but as I had some Chum Puppy Mixers (like chum mixers but much, much smaller) that I’d had for ages I decided to feed them and fish bread on the hook as I am very confident fishing with that having used it a lot at Willinghurst before floaters were banned.

The other thing you need at Priory is a good draw as although you can catch a weight from most swims, you can probably only win from half a dozen. THE peg is number 34, for those who don’t know the fishery, it is an end peg, in a corner and is surrounded by sort of small lily pads and it is solid with fish. No matter how you fish it you will catch well and as long as someone who knows which end of the pole to hold draws the peg then it is usually won from there !

After a hearty but not very cheap breakfast at the Little Thief, we arrived at Priory, unloaded the gear and then were almost last to draw. We were then in the pleasant situation of having 5 of us to draw and 4 good pegs left. Smiffy (Mark Smith) did us a big favour by drawing the one we didn’t want and then after Ross drew Peg 2 (the same peg he bagged up from last year) I then spoilt everyone’s day (or so it seemed) by drawing PEG 34 ! Isn’t it amazing how happy your mates are for you when you draw a flier !

On arriving at my peg after a nice short walk, I just decided to fish floaters out to my left at about 9 metres as this was a comfortable distance and would keep the fish far enough away as to not spook them, and also fish in the edge either side. There were allegedly so many fish in the peg that I saw little point in fishing loads of different parts of the peg and thought they would just come to wherever I fed.

I fed a mixture of hemp, corn and luncheon meat in the edge and started off with corn on the hook. Having caught 3 small rudd in the first three casts, I picked up the paste rig to see if that gave better results – first put in the float didn’t even settle and just went straight under and my first carp of the day was soon in the net. I kept feeding floaters all the time I was fishing down the edge and although I was catching well in the edge, I knew that I would catch just as fast off the top and they would all be bigger fish as on the bottom I was picking up small carp (about 6oz), small crucians and even gudgeon amongst the normal sized carp !

As soon as the fish “came up” it was just a question of keeping the fish there by feeding floaters and catching as many fish as you could ! To save keeping the fish in the nets for the duration of the match, we were having a half time weigh in at 1pm – oh yes, did I mention it rained a bit, but only all day ! At the half time weigh in I had 75lb and whilst I didn’t hear how everyone else had done – as I was first to weigh and really didn’t want to venture out from under my brolly too much, I was sure that I was ahead of the field and just needed a good second half.

Putting back a load of fish didn’t appear to help the peg ! as I now couldn’t get the fish back on the top but was happy to catch on paste down the edge until the fish eventually gained confidence and started feeding off the top again. The second half went much the same as the first and I have to admit that I did get a bit bored as it wasn’t exactly “Thinking fishing” - throw some floaters in, ship out with piece of bread on hook, lift pole after fish has eaten bread, ship back, net fish and repeat process ! I did get a bit side tracked with an hour to go when some fish appeared up in the water in the edge swim and then I spent a while trying to catch them as it was great fun watching them come up from under the bread and suck it in. I certainly could have caught more if I’d stuck to the longer floater line but hey, this fishing is supposed to be fun. At the weigh in my 89lb “afternoon” net gave me a total of 165-4-0 which was enough to finish ahead of Ross 137-2-0 and Hathers 134-8-0 who had a peg to peg battle. Local “Experts” ! Nick Kenward 124-13-0 and Ray Smee 109-4-0 then filled the next two places.

So, my good run continues, since starting to Blog, I’ve had a couple of club wins, some decent results in the Willinghurst opens, a few section wins, a lake win in the charity match and a good result in the TF Withy bash – Long may it continue, just need to keep drawing a few more fliers and I’ll be OK.

Next match is Wednesday at Willinghurst.
Will I draw another flier, will it rain all day, will there be a bigger turnout cos all the Dorking anglers are away practicing at Woodlands in Thirsk ?

All will be revealed in the next thrilling instalment of Pikeys Progress – read it here on Thursday morning !

2006-05-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

Midweek Madness !

This Wednesday saw me visit a new venue for me…………………Willinghurst !
Mick Seymour in his wisdom had decided to split the match over Top and Old lakes and after I’d jiggled about with his original pegging, there was not one peg that I wouldn’t have minded drawing. I therefore waited until last and had the final peg in the hat. Peg 20 on top lake was my location for the day and I was more than happy.

For those who don’t know Willinghurst, Peg 20 is two pegs from the end of the far bank and is on a slight point which means that you have loads of room and can dominate the lake. It can also be a very good edge peg as it has loads of features in the edge and is a very good depth. The other good thing was that Howard (Northern Bloke / Marginpig) drew it on the Leatherhead DAS match on Sunday and had 71lb so it must be solid !!!!!

My theory at Willinghurst and many other carp venues is that when the carp are moving about and feeding, if you fish the waggler or long pole and feed, then this means the fish have no need to come in closer. As long as nobody close to me is feeding “Out”, then I am more than happy to fish at 8 or 9 metres and the fish will come in to find your feed. This may be total rubbish but I believe it anyway !

I therefore chose to fish paste straight out in front of me at about 8-9 metres and corn down the edge to my right. Whilst I usually just use the paste coming off the hook to feed the fish, I’d not seen any signs of fish in the area whilst setting up so decided to feed a big pot of hemp with a few bits of paste just to kick start the swim. Having caught on corn the previous match, I also fed some hemp and corn down the edge.

Feeding the paste line was a big mistake as within seconds of it hitting the bottom the peg erupted with blows and when I shipped out my rig, the float would not stay still as liner after liner pulled the float about. First cast I had a foulhooker that I played for ages then the hook pulled out at the net, second cast I had a 7 pounder in the mouth that took an age to get in and as it looked like being a “bagging match” I swapped over to using my Maver H10 edge pole with red hydro. Whilst the peg was clearly “solid”, after 5 quick fish I then struggled to catch and in the end found the best way to catch was to fish small bits of paste on a “conventional” carp rig ie a KC Carpa Porth float shotted normally with the paste an inch overdepth. The fishing seemed slow but at Willinghurst, by putting 5 fish an hour into the net, you are still going to finish up with over 100lb. As quite often happens, after the initial burst of fish, the fishing slows considerably until the final 2 hours when the fish really get their heads down and feed properly. Looking round the lake, Will Raison on Peg 6 was struggling, Jim Dodkins on 12 was catching a few as was Mick Seymour behind me on the back spit but I couldn’t see anyone else catching and thought that with half the match gone I was probably winning the lake (how wrong can you be !). I kept plodding on and with 2 hours to go, started to catch a few fish in the edge. I had intended to fish corn but the few times I put it on the hook I had a roach or rudd – I therefore shallowed up my paste rig slightly to fish it in the edge and immediately started catching.

I continued to catch odd fish up until the end of the match and in the last hour I’d noticed that Paul Holland on Peg 22 was catching a few fish but not as many as me.
I’d heard Don Garnish had caught 15 carp halfway through the match on Peg 3 on Old lake so I knew he’d have a weight as would Dave Lewis on Peg 20 on Old but I thought I might just sneak in the coin. I thought I was going to win the lake until Paul Holland weighed in 257-0-0 and I couldn’t believe what he’d caught without me knowing when he was only about 30 feet away. I weighed in 138-0-0 only a mere 128lb behind and did feel a little bit silly when I told him that I thought I had beaten him ! The next weight on the lake was Jim Long on peg 13 who had 110lb followed by Grumpy Collins with 101lb from Peg 16. The old lake was won by Dave Lewis with 120lb mostly on catfood and Don was second – an agonising 1-14-0 behind.
The fish were caught mainly on the pole on a variety of baits, some on Corn, pellet, paste and catfood and a good time was had by all.

Wednesdays are brilliant at Willinghurst as they seem to be a bit more relaxed than weekends – why not take some time off a get yourselves down there ?

My next match is a Leatherhead DAS match at Priory Farm on Sunday, which I think is going to turn out to be a days floater fishing.

So, look on here on Monday for the next thrilling instalment..

See you again soon

Pikey

2006-05-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

Leatherhead DAS Club Match

Luckily for me our first club match of the season was on the top lake at Willinghurst, the place where some anglers think I live. And, whilst that is not exactly true, I have to admit that I do spend a fair amount of time there.

With 25 anglers on the lake, which only houses 28 pegs, some of the pegging was going to be a bit tight to say the least as there are a couple of pegs that they never use. When I came to draw there were only 4 pegs remaining one of them being peg 28 at the far end of the back spit – a peg which is only 2 foot deep in the deepest part of the peg and one that they rarely peg.

Yes, I got it !

After much moaning and general grumpiness, I was reminded by Hathers at the next peg about comments I had made on the Total fishing website regarding moaners and whingers and how lucky we were that we could actually get out to go fishing ! So, suitably reprimanded, I agreed with him that if I moaned again that day then I would donate £10 to charity !

Plumbing up I found the deepest part of the peg was just to my left next to some rushes and was 2 foot deep - but really too close to me to catch much from it. I also plumbed up on the point of the island where it was a bit shallower and right across – slightly to the left of me which was the shallowest part of the peg being probably 18 inches deep. Whilst I wanted to fish paste, there was no way I was going to try fishing it at 14.5 metres in 18 inches of water. I therefore decided to fish paste in the edge, corn across to the island and in my wisdom that the long left hand line was too shallow to catch from.

An initial feed of a big pot of hemp and corn went out to the island and in the edge along with a few bits of paste on the inside line. The long pole rig was a Drennan Tippo float (.25 gram) attached to 0.18 G Line and a size 18 B911 hook with a single grain of corn on the hook. I started to catch a few small carp (two pounders) by the island but with the water being so shallow they spooked away every time I hooked one and I then had to wait a while for them to return. However, I just decided to plod away picking off the occasional fish and after a few hours see how I was doing compared to everyone else. The lake appeared to be fishing hard, Ross was catching a few fish on Peg 6 but whilst everyone was catching the odd carp, nobody seemed to be “Bagging”. I’d been feeding the edge peg for a while and first drop in resulted in a 3lb fish followed next cast by another but then it went dead and I left it alone to recover and return to it later. I was still catching a few fish by the island but then the wind changed direction and blew the scum which had been floating in the peg right across to the far bank and the fish that were about drifted out of range of my pole. I could almost reach the far bank with 14.5 metres fishing at about 10 o'clock and as I saw a couple of fish there I fed a big pot of hemp and corn across, shallowed up my rig by 6 inches and pushed the pole out. Within a couple of minutes I had the first of what was going to be many carp in the net and with two hours to go I started to catch well, including a few bigger fish in the 5-6lb range. This was lovely fishing as I could see that nobody was really bagging and I was still catching regularly. When the action slowed, I just fed again and the fish returned, this carried on until the end of the match when I finally netted my last fish right on the whistle.

I really had no idea what weight I had but thought I might possibly have 100lb. Nobody admitted to having anything like that but I knew Ross had caught well and was likely to frame.

At the weigh in, the final placings were:-

1st Dave Pearson (Me) Peg 28 114-2-0
2nd Ross Nursey Peg 6 100-10-0
3rd Eddie Green Peg 22 81-0-0-
4th Jim Heasman Peg 24 79-0-0

Howard "Northern bloke / marginpig" had 71lb from Peg 20 and you can read his account of the match at ………….http://drynets.blogspot.com/

Oh yes, Hathers asked me not to mention that I duffed him up off the next peg with 114lb to 60lb odd – so I wont.

Wednesday sees me back “home” at Willinghurst and on Sunday is Leatherhead DAS match number 2 at Priory Lake where I’m reliably informed by Nick Kenward that you need to fish "Go Kat" cat biscuits on the hook – but only the fish shaped ones work !!!!!
I think I might just stick to fishing bread instead.

See you soon

2006-05-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

Getting it Wrong !

Well, here it is for all the impatient people who have been nagging me to report on my latest match, the Wednesday open at Willinghurst.

Having little time for pleasure fishing or practice sessions, I quite often use my Wednesday matches as a chance to try out different baits and or methods, and this week was no exception. As many of you know I do like to fish paste in the summer and whilst I have a number of recipes that I know work, I am always looking for other mixes that might catch quicker.

With the match on Top and Old lakes, I really wanted a draw on Top as I have a Leatherhead DAS club match there on Sunday and it is always nice to fish the venue a couple of days before a match. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I (well it was actually Kirsty) drew me Peg 17 on Old Lake. I was quite happy with the peg as it had a lot of room (one thing that really helps at Willinghurst) and it had thrown up a big weight a couple of weeks ago.

I decided to fish I line at 8 metres straight out in front of me and two lines in the edge by the rushes either side of me. My “Secret Paste” to try was a very fishy one made out of liquidized prawns (nice and cheap in Lidls), a bit of some seafoody groundbait I found in my tackle room and with some crushed weetabix to bind it all together. When I first made it, the texture was superb but unfortunately as the paste soaked up the water it got stickier and stickier – which is exactly what you don’t want with paste, and I finished the day with more paste on me and my pole than I put on the hook ! In the end, I did find the best way to remain clean was to dip my fingers in a bowl of water before picking up the paste and this gave it a coating of water and didn’t stick to everything.

At the start I cupped in bait on all lines and had a 6lb carp about third put in on the 8 metre line, but then got roached out as all the carp appeared to be in the edges. I did have a laugh with Harry (The Hat) Clements at the next peg and I’m sure he learnt two valuable lessons during the day. One was don’t leave your edge pole at home and the second was, don’t try and fish by the rushes with black hydro ! A number of times I looked up to see Harry standing up with his pole up I the air and a fish thrashing about in the middle of the rushes, I think he said he’d lost 6 floats by the end of the match ! – I fished red hydro and only lost one fish in the rushes all day. I did start to catch a few fish in the swim to my left but then they just disappeared and I struggled for the rest of the match . Even the usual purple patch with 90 minutes to go didn’t materialise and I finished the match with 62-8-0 for about 4th on the lake. John Clifford won the lake with 140lb from by the bridge on peg 14, fished catfood on the hook and fed nothing all day. Russ Berryman on Peg 8 was second with 120lb, mostly on the waggler and Donald G was 3rd with 106lb on catfood in the rushes on Peg 13 – which I was not happy about as it meant that I had to give back the £2 I took off him on Sunday !

The match was won by Steve Sanders with 220lb from Peg 8 on the top lake with Mark Perkins filling second spot from Peg 18 with 150lb. Dave Lewis (a welcome addition to the Willinghurst regulars) filled third place from Peg 26 on the back spit with 147lb.

I’m not really sure how to fish the club match on Sunday as I don’t think that the water is yet warm enough for paste but we’ll see. Howard (Marginpig) is also fishing (I suppose you could call it that) on sunday so you will be able to compare our blogs next week.

See you all soon and have a great weekend.

Pikey

2006-05-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

Angling Projects Charity Match.

Sunday saw me at Willinghurst (for a change !) for a charity match I was running in aid of the "Angling Projects Group", who basically teach youngsters to fish in the hope that they will get involved in the sport and away from the temptations of crime and drugs etc.

With 60 anglers fishing, we had split the pegging over Old, New, Top, Horseshoe and Pittance Lakes and the way the lakes had been fishing, you really needed a draw on Old or New lakes to have a chance of being in the frame. Due to a few "Non Attendees", when I came to draw, there were 5 pegs remaining in the draw bag, of which 2 of them were probably the most consistent pegs on the fishery (Old 14 and Top 22) and 2 on Pittance (Pegs 1 and 12) which although you were unlikely to catch enough to frame, you could have a nice days fishing . I never like to draw my own peg on matches I organise as if you draw a flier there are always cries of "Fiddle", which I appreciate are light hearted but if you draw a decent peg, I'm sure some believe that you have infact fiddled it. Anyway Kirsty (who works in the clubhouse) had done a fine job in the past of drawing me some fair pegs so I asked her to draw for me. She then apologised profusely for picking me Pittance 12 but I was actually quite pleased as I have been hoping to draw on Pittance for a while as it is my favourite lake and I also had my chauffeur and local ace - Donald Garnish esq at the next peg.

Peg 12 on Pittance is one that I've never drawn before but has some form as a method feeder peg casting to the end of the island. I hate fishing the method feeder but thought I ought to set one up and being groundbait less, Terry The Cod volunteered to go and get me a couple of bags from the cabin. Having arrived at my peg fairly late due to sorting out the draw etc, I decided to set up the rigs I wanted to fish and then if I had time I'd set up a method feeder !

I had decided to fish paste at 9 metres (a comfortable distance), at about 4 metres (just down the shelf) and in the edge both sides. Rigs were my usual paste floats this time attached to 0.16 G Line as the fish in Pittance are smaller than the other lakes with a size 10 Gamakatsu Pellet hook which I've been using lately and do like a lot - although the size 10 is really too small but it is the biggest size they make them in. As Terry come along the bank towards me, I looked at my watch and I had 5 minutes to go before the start and no method rod set up. I then made the make or break decision of the match and decided to ignore the island and concentrate on the lines I'd selected. I kicked off the match with half a big pot of 3mm swim stim pellets on all lines and having impailed a piece of paste on my 9 metre rig, sat back to await developments. I then sat biteless for about 15 minutes before the constant dripping in of 6mm pellets drew a few fish in the peg. Although Dave Lewis in the corner on Peg 18 had started off like a train and was netting fish at regular intervals, the rest of the anglers on the lake were very quiet. By switching between my 9 and 4 metre lines I began to catch the odd fish or two but the constant feeding of pellets on the long line had brought a lot of fish up in the water and were giving me loads of liners on the paste rig. I quickly set up a shallow rig attached a banded pellet and had 3 fish in three casts before they all buggered off ! Back on the deck saw me still picking up the odd fish or two until the last hour arrived and I managed to edge the fish in to 6 metres and really started to catch well. The funny thing was that Pittance is renowned for being an "Edge Lake" but I didn't see a fish either side despite feeding both swims constantly throughout the match. I knew I was going to be top weight on my bank as I could see what my side of the island was catching but Derek White on Peg 3 and Mark Goddard on Peg 5 had been catching well down the edge at the finish and I really didn't know what they'd had.

On the whistle I packed up as quickly as I could and took some of my gear back to the clubhouse so I could sit and work out all the pools payout etc before anglers started to come back.

By the time the first weigh sheet came back, I'd counted all the money worked out the pay out put the money in envelopes and counted all the sponsorship money ! How's that for organisation !

John Swann returned soon afterwards and said I'd won the lake with 120lb with Derek White second with just over 100lb and Mark Goddard 3rd with 97lb - the even better news was that I also had Don's £1.

As the weigh sheets started to come back it was clear to see that the venue had fished really well, with numerous 100lb nets (19 in total). The top 6 on the day were as follows:-

Darren Dodge New Lake Peg 1 200-2-0
Terry Harrison New Lake Peg 8 185-0-0
Steve Sanders Old Lake Peg 8 160-12-0
Bob Clampitt New Lake Peg 18 155-0-0
Justin Watkins Old Lake Peg 3 154-12-0
Paul Hiller Top Lake Peg 12 152-4-0

So, all in all a great day was had by most, I'd caught 120lb of fish, taken Don's £1 and picked up a few quid for winning my lake.

We also managed to raise a total of £1,716 for the Angling Projects Team and also people donated a load of tackle as well. Thanks to everyone who helped to raise the money.
If anyone is interested in "A days fishing with a Star angler" - Who are nearly all England Internationals then log on to TOTAL-FISHING.COM as we are at present auctioning some of these days out with the proceeds going to the Angling Projects Fund.

See you Thursday, when I report on Wednesdays match !

2006-05-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

Back to Willinghurst

Having survived the Total-Fishing.com "Steve Ramsay Memorial" weekend in Salisbury, it was back to normal for the wednesday Willinghurst open on the top lake. The match organisation has now moved to the luxurious and very spacious clubhouse near the Main Lake (Old trout lake) and very nice it is too. After a bit of breakfast I was caught chatting and ended up with the last peg in the draw bag, Peg 13 at the far end of the lake. I was quite happy with the peg as it has loads of room and nothing anyone else does can influence your fishing.

Russ Berryman on Peg 22 and Steve Sanders on Peg 26 (with nobody on Peg 25) looked like the anglers to beat but the good thing about Willinghurst is that any of the pegs can throw up a weight. I know that I am unlikely to beat the "Superstars" at Willinghurst fishing as they do, so have adopted a paste attack as I know that if I draw reasonably then it gives me a chance of a pick up. I've also decided that if I don't draw too close to anyone else then I won't fish out to far as if you start to feed long then the fish aren't as likely to come in short. I set up three paste rigs to fish down the shelf to my left about 8 metres along the bank, straight out in front at 9 metres and in the edge to my right at 13 metres.
I started off at 9 metres and had a fish of about 7lb third put in but the first few hours were really hard as nobody on the lake seemed to be catching and it wasn't until the last 2 hours that I really started to catch, (as did everyone else) with the majority of my fish coming from the left hand swim. I did however, suffer from loads of missed bites, something that I've never had before when fishing paste as the float was just shooting under and when I struck there was nothing there. Some will say they were just liners but I'm not so sure as sometimes when striking I would have foul hooked the fish that was brushing against the line.
Being on the scales we started off wighing in from the early pegs and Dave Lewis set the early pace from the Bomb hole (Peg 2) with 79-4-0, then there was nothing to bother the leaders until we got to John Clifford on Peg 12. John weighed 75lb and thought that we had about the same but I was sure I had more and was confident of at least winning the section. After two weighs, my final total was 90-2-0 and although I knew Russ Berryman (Peg 22) had weighed in
100-4-0 with the majority of his fish coming from down the edge in the last two hours, I thought I might just finish in the top 3 with Steve Sanders (Peg 26) and Anthony Hamilton on Peg 27 still to weigh.
Steve finished just short with 75lb but took the section and Anthony finished a lot closer with 86-0-0 to finish 3rd. So, the run goes on and another £70 in the old sky rocket, but will it continue at the weekend with the "Angling Projects" Charity match at Willinghurst. Check it out on Monday for a full report.

2006-05-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

A weekend on the Farm 2006

To say that I was looking forward to the Total Fishing .com "Steve Ramsay Memorial" weekend at Witherington Farm would have been somewhat of an understatement ! Everything about the weekend, from the welcome you get from everyone at the fishery, to Nicky and Julies organisation, the fishing and the craic, is absolutely spot on - except for the price of rooms in the Kings Head !

With the Trophy being fished for over two days (Saturday and Sunday), a large number of competitors were also going down to Salisbury on the Friday for a bit of sneaky practice and a drink or two friday evening.

My travelling companion for the weekend was Antmusic (thanks for the lift Ant and the company as you seemed to follow me around on the lakes !) who was as excited about the weekend as me and duly arrived at my house at 8.30am on the friday morning. Having loaded the gear we were on our way for the 100 mile drive to Withy, broken only by a stop for breakfast at the Little Thief. Fortunately I have registered on the little Thief website so I can print off a half price voucher when need be, this makes the purchase of breakfast a lot less painful ! Although I did spot that if you wanted to add a grilled tomato to your order then it would cost you an extra 99p !

Arriving at Withy at about 11am, we did a quick tour of the lakes to see who was about but with only a couple of pegs remaining on Sellwood Lake where we were due to fish the next day, we made a quick return to the car to grab our gear. Ant chose peg 14 and to be sociable I put my gear on Peg 13. Whilst I had heard stories that the lake was full of skimmers and you could catch 30lb with ease, nobody seemed to be catching much at all as we wandered round so I decided that with the wind full in our faces, I'd just fish paste (no surprise there then) at about 7 metres and down the edge to my left. I was pleasantly surprised to find a decent depth in the edge infact it was only a couple of inches deeper at 7 metres. The rigs for both lines were identical, being black hydro, 0.18 G-Line, a Maver 4x14 paste float and a size 16 eyed mustad method feeder hook.
Just as I was about to start Ant realised that we needed to dip our landing nets so grabbed mine as well and made his way back past Barnmoor to the net dip. Nobody had been catching much so I didn't really expect to catch anything until we'd build the pegs up with a bit of feed. Anyway, first put in down the edge, the float shoots straight under and I am attached to a very angry Withy carp. I did shout to Ant to hurry up but he needn't have bothered as I was unlikely to need the net for some time ! Are these fish on steroids ?
After some time the fish must have got bored of playing me around the lake and realised that the sooner I netted him the sooner he'd be released. I eventually managed to get some elastic back in the pole and after a lot more pulling finally netted my first Sellwood "Double" - I thought all the big fish were supposed to be in Barnmoor but this one must have sneaked over for a change of scenery ! Both Ant and I spent a pleasant afternoon being towed around the lake by a few more carp, including one that decided to swim under my platform just as Crusty was arriving at the peg behind me. My plan of attack was to fool the fish by passing my top two under the platform, therefore following the fish, however I did then get in a pickle trying to lay down on my foot stand and trying to pass the pole underneath - fortunately nobody had a camera ! oh yes, I lost the fish as well as it wrapped me round the platform leg on the other side. I did switch to red hydro later in the day and found this to be much much better as it actually gave some control over the fish - I don't think I've ever been bottomed out on black hydro before but these fish were mental.

We finally packed up at about 5pm to catch the minibus into Salisbury and personally I'd learnt the following for the next day.

1. Don't bother fishing for silvers, as even if you only caught one carp an hour then you'd still have a decent weight.
2. Paste definitely caught the bigger fish.
3. I had to fish red hydro the following day.

I won't cover the evenings festivities here, However, it is suffice to say that everyone had a great evening in Salisbury but I woke the following morning (having still been making everyone paste at 2am) to the news that Scone had broken his collarbone and would be unable to fish.

Following a hearty breakfast, I was ready to go and at the draw with Scone not fishing, I was left with the choice of two pegs - Ant was loitering in the cafe at the time so I got him to draw for me. He'd drawn Peg 15 on the point and picked me out......................Peg 14 ! which was the peg he'd fished the day before. Luckily for me, the peg not drawn was Peg 13 which meant that I had a lot of room down the bank to my left. The wind was in the same direction as the day before so I decided to fish it exactly the same, straight out in front at about 7 or 8 metres and down both edges. I didn't expect to catch much, if any to my right as my edge peg there was about 2 metres away from Ant and so with nobody in peg 13 and 12 I decided to concentrate my efforts in that direction. The rigs were identical to the day before except that I'd swapped the black hydro for red. I spent the first hour swapping between the edge pegs with the odd look on the 8 metre line but never had an indication at all. This was not a good start, although nothing much had been caught around the lake by this time PJ had a couple of fish on the lead, Shedfull had 2 in the first half hour but nothing since, Red Army was bagging on silvers and I think Skip had caught a couple the other side of the island but I couldn't see him. So, "on the hour mark I skillfully added another couple of sections to my pole to fish right in front of the platform on Peg 13". Richard Chave dictated that bit to me from the peg behind me on Barnmoor and I promised to include it in my report !
Within 15 minutes I'd hooked my first carp of the day - but not for long as the elastic shot out and this was definitely foul hooked. I'd found the day before that when using the red hydro when I struck if they were hooked in the mouth they just kited towards the middle of the lake and if I just followed them with the pole then I had no problems. About 2 foot of elastic came out and I could just edge the pole back and the carp would just follow it in. The fun began when I unshipped at the top 2 and tried to lift them up in the water, although they just plodded about until they tired a bit. Anyway , over the past few years I have learnt to remain calm and not wound up when you lose foulhookers (Ant - Please note), yes it is annoying but sometimes happens.

I was even more confident of catching now and rather than feed loads of bait in the edge and risk getting loads of fish in the peg, I just used the paste to feed the peg and hopefully attract one or two fish into the peg at a time.
By the end of the second hour I was back on target with two fish, one about 7lb and one which I thought was about 13lb. Skip had started to catch on the waggler to the island and Red Army was still bashing the silvers but little else was happening, so if I could just maintain this catch rate and add a couple at the end when they are usually feeding better then I thought I might be in with a chance of winning the lake.
I did try the seven metre line and down to the right a few times with no success but was convinced that the left hand margin was the place to be fishing, and I kept swapping between big bits (no, not quite as big as Crusty's tennis ball sized baits) and smaller bits of paste but it didn't seem to make a lot of difference as you just needed a fish or two in the peg. With an hour to go I'd had 5 fish for about 40lb and thought I was probably 2nd on the lake behind Skip, however, I think that changed next cast when I had another lump of about 14lb and followed that with another couple of 6lb fish in the last hour.

The match ended with me on 8 carp, Skip with 15 and Red Army with a few carp and loads of silvers. It doesn't take long to pack away when using paste, two rigs and a quick swill out of a paste bowl takes very little time so I grab the weigh sheet and made my way round to Nicky with Zipbandit to start the weigh in. When we reached Skip, he pulled his net out and I thought it would be close between us as although he had 7 more carp than me, I did have two lumps. Having added a couple pound of silvers to his weight he finally registered 58-8-0. Red Army had a superb 33-8-0 of silvers plus 20lb of carp for 53-8-0 and when I lifted my net to weigh I was confident that I had done enough to win the lake, especially when we weighed the two big fish together and they pulled the needle round to 28lb ! the other six and a couple of skimmers added another 38lb to the weight as I finished the day with 66-8-0. Enough for a section win and second overall on the day.

Pete Bailey fished a very very long pole to the island on Barnmoor to weigh 51-10-0, finishing well ahead of Martyn Dwayne on 31-4-0 with Bez (Alan Hansen) taking the silvers prize with 21-0-0. Over on Cottage lake Ben Field had annihilated the rest of the anglers on the lake by taking first place on the day with a brilliant 110-10-0, well ahead of Colin Sellwood (Bacon Chef) with 49-14-0.

The second evening in Salisbury was much like the first with much drinking by some and much laughing by everyone - although we did miss Scone who had taken his broken collarbone off home.

Day 2 saw us all on the Snake lake, some on the inner snake and some on the outer, depending on which lake they were on the previous day. This time the lovely Julie drew me Peg 11 which although I'd been told the best pegs were 1,3,19,21, and 23, I wasn't too worried as once again I had a blank peg to my left as PJ had not made it to the draw and anyway I still had to try and fish for a section win to have a chance of winning the Trophy.

Having caught well in the edge last year, I decided to fish the same this year, with swims right and left one rig for down the middle and one right across. My rigs were black hydro again with 4x14 maver paste floats but this time to 0.16 line and a variety of hooks, one was a size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook which is actually smaller than a size 16 mustad method hook ! and the others were size 14 PR 21's as I intended to use smaller pieces of paste. At the start, I fed half a pot of 3mm green swim stim pellets on all four lines and also “plopped” a couple of small balls of GB down the middle - this was just my throw away line, if the fish came in on it then all well and good but I wasn't too worried if they didn't - I would however keep “plopping” a small hard ball of GB on that line throughout the day.

I started off fishing to my left and after 5 minutes hooked my first fish - a foulhooker which came off. I also lost my second fish, one of about 4lb which I played for ages on black hydro as I just couldn't get it's head up. This was just the sign I needed as I immediately switched over to red hydro like the day before and my problems were solved. For the next hour and a half I caught steadily and then the swim died. I tried to my right but only had one fish then down the middle with no success at all. I then decided to have a go right across - now to say that fishing paste across on the snake is difficult would be an understatement, as the shelves are very steep and if you drop the rig in an inch short of where it should be, the paste sinks the float and it is so soft that if you try to move it the paste falls off or if you push it 2 inches too far the float sits up like a lighthouse ! What a nightmare !!!
I did catch a few carp across but it was hard work and in hindsight, I should have fished a pellet or corn rig across.
I came back on the inside, went a metre further along the bank and also started to feed 20 or so pellets each time I cupped the paste in. Whilst I was sitting on the platform rather than on my box (as the platforms are so far off the water, I think you can easily spook the fish if you sit even higher on the top of a seat box) I had only started at about 5 metres along the bank and thought the fish might just have backed off a bit. I started to pick up the odd fish again then suddenly hooked one that I thought was foul hooked as it took off up the snake towards Happy Dangler at the next peg after much messing about, I finally managed to get another couple of sections on and held on for dear life. Luckily the fish turned and after what seemed like an eternity I finally netted a carp that later weighed 15-2-0 - I think that's what you call a bonus fish !

I added a couple more fish before the final whistle and with only a couple of rigs to pack up I was soon wandering along the bank to the top end of the section to help with the weigh in. During the match, I could see that nobody was catching much in the 5 pegs to my right but I’d seen Skip and Ant catching a few and having caught in spells I had no idea what weight I had. Skip included a double figure fish in his 47-0-0, with another couple of fish caught in the edge in the last ten minutes just beating Ant by a couple of pounds. My final weight of 72-10-0 was enough to take the section as the far end of the section struggled – although Zipbandit did apparently lose 18 carp in a row at one stage ! So, there must have been a few fish there !!!

Well, I could do no more than return 2 points over the two days and to be honest, I don’t think I could have caught a lot more out of either peg. However, I was still gutted to find that Pete Bailey had won his section with 116-10-8 and pipped me for the title on weight. Nevertheless, I had a brilliant weekend, the organisation (as always) was superb, the fishing suited the way I like to fish and the company was absolutely first class. I can’t wait for next year and have already booked my hotel room – as have many others !

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, we also raised £700 for the Cancer Research Fund and a big thank you must go to all the Total -Fishing .com people who helped raise the money (including some who weren't actually there) and Ant for running the raffle – Thanks Chaps, I hope to see you all again next year.

2006-04-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

What a difference a drop of sunshine makes !

I can officially state that the Top lake at Willinghurst which had been very dour during the winter / early spring has now burst into life over the past week or so.

There were 15 pegs on it on yesterdays open (and 9 on new lake) and there were 11 weights over 96lb !

To be honest, I was in two minds whether to fish the Willinghurst open on wednesday as on the previous sundays match all the top weights had been taken fishing up in the water at 16 metres and as I don't do that very well at all, it all seemed a bit pointless trying to compete with the likes of Steve Gardener and Will Raison doing what they do best ! Nevertheless, I wasn't working and the alternative was a days pleasure fishing which I knew I'd be bored with after about half an hour.

So, with another £25 donation to the Dorking benevolent fund looking likely, out came Peg 18 on the Top lake - a reasonable peg but then again I think they all are once the place warms up. When I reached the peg, despite it having no current from, I quite quite fancied it as I had a lot of room with the pegs either side not in and although Steve Gardener was at the next peg, he was quite a way away. With the wind being quite strong, I decided to fish three lines, one at about 9 metres with paste and / or luncheon meat, one to my right in the edge with the same baits and one to my left at the bottom of the shelf with paste. For those of you who like the technical stuff, the paste rigs were 0.18 G line to a mustad size 16 method feeder hooks with a
4x14 maver paste float shotted to the bottom of the bristle with 3 number 8 shot. The "Long" luncheon meat rig was a 4x12 KC Porth float to 0.16 with a size 16 B911.

I'd caught well the previous wednesday on "Meat" paste and had again made some up this week (by liquidizing a couple of tins of spam with some Crazy Bait Gold groundbait) and also had some Omega paste. I know that I can catch on my normal Green swim stim paste but wanted to try something different. Anyway, at the start I fed a pot of mushed up paste mix and hemp on the long line and to my left and some hemp and meat cubes in the magin swim to my right.
The pattern at Willinghurst lately has been that you all catch a few fish early on then sport peters out for a few hours then comes back with a vengeance for the last hour and a half or so. Unfortunately I seemed to miss the bit where you all catch a few fish at the start and immediately moved to the petering out stage as Delbert behind me and Steve Gardener to my left were both catching well, as was Will Raison on Peg 21 but was complaining that his fish were only small - about 5lb each ! I'd not really got my paste texture right as it's not easy when using meat in a paste mix and in the end, I just chucked both lots of paste in a bowl along with some hemp and the mush I'd fed at the start and mixed it all up together with a drop more water!
The rather fortunate result was a paste with exactly the texture that I was looking for - stiff enough to stay on the hook whilst it reached the bottom but so soft the fish could drink it !!!!!
The added bonus with this paste is that with meat and hemp in it, it gives off oils in the peg, this makes it especially easy to spot when a carp is grubbing around the peg as the oil emissions increase greatly.

After a while I started to pick up a few fish between 5lb and 8lb and was starting to really enjoy myself. However, I couldn't get a bite on the long line or down the edge which was a shame as it gave me nowhere to go to rest the peg, although I did keep trying them from time to time.
As I didin't thinkthe fish were really "having it", I had been using smallish bit soft paste on the hook but it wasn't until I started using big bits (that only just fitted in the pole cup) that I started to get a few more fish. I ended the match with about 19 carp, 3 tench and 3 rudd - the silver fish coming early on before the carp moved in - for 108-12-0 which whilst being an enjoyable days fishing, I knew I'd come nowhere in the match with it.

Mark Goddard had drawn peg 2 again, having finished second from it the previous saturday and this time made no mistake with 177lb, ahead of his team mate Will Raison who was second with 155lb from Peg 21. Molesey's Mick Farrington split up the Dorking contingent with an impressive 149lb with Steve Gardener finally ending up 4th with 121lb.

Delbert should have pipped him with 147lb but the ruling on nets at Willinghurst is that you can only have 65lb of fish in a net. If you have more than that then the weight will only count as 65lb. Delberts judgement did prove to be slightly out as in one net he had 92-8-0 !!!!!!!!
His second net was within the limits so he finished up with 111lb, just a few pounds out of the money.

Another enjoyable but frustrating day at Willinghurst as I was again just a fish or two out of the frame but with the water warming up as the summer goes on I hope that the paste will get better and better.

I'm off to Witherington Farm tomorrow for the Total Fishing "Steve Ramsay Memorial" weekend and will report back early next week.

2006-04-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for this to happen !

Well, it just had to happen didn't it, I knew that as soon as I started blogging then I'd soon have a match where everything went tits up, and saturday was that match.

We'd managed to get tickets for one of the VIP grandstands at the London Marathon on the sunday so I quickly arranged to fish at Willinghurst on the saturday match instead. With a reasonable turn out, the match was pegged over Old, Top and Pittance Lake and as usual with Willinghurst, I really really really wanted to draw Pittance as it is my favourite lake.
I stood in the draw queue whilst everyone was drawing the pegs I wanted and then picked out Old Lake Peg 12 ! In winter, this is a brillaint lead peg as the fish shoal up somewhere between pegs 12 and 14 but when the weather has warmed up, it's not so good. Nevertheless, Alan Woods had won from it the previous wednesday with over 100lb but on that day he caught down by the tree to the right and Peg 11 was not in - this does make a hell of a difference as the angler on peg 11 is almost sitting on top of where you want to fish. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it !

To be honest, I just misjudged the mood of the venue completely. On wednesday I had just started to catch a few fish on paste - although not my usual greenswim stim paste but meat paste and I therefore decided (quite wrongly as it turned out) that as the weather had remained warm then I'd bag up on paste. There's not a lot to be said about my match, I just picked the wrong bait and method on the day and finished up with one carp of about 5lb caught 20 minutes from the end.

Tony Kent had drawn the point on the Old lake (Peg 20) and won with 138lb, mostly caugh t in the rushes either side of him on catfood, Mark Goddard took second place with just over 100lb from Peg 2 on the Top lake and Steve Gardener took 3rd place with 94lb from peg 4 on Old Lake. Top weight on Pittance was Paul Holland catching on the method feeder and weighing in 70lb from Peg 7. Oh yes, I should really mention that I got well and truly duffed up by Adrain Blackwell at the next peg as he won the section by default with 87lb on catfood, mostly fishing under the tree to his right - well done mate !

I'm back there onWednesday - and will not make the same mistake again, then it's off to Witherington Farm near Salisbury for the weekend TF organised Steve Ramsay Memorial weekend - and I can hardly wait !

Before I go, I have noticed a few anglers getting very stressed and wound up lately about the pegs they have drawn etc - what some anglers need to remember is how lucky we are to be able to get out and fish - there are loads of people who would like to get out but can't for one reason or another. Winning is not the be all and end all of fishing and you may enjoy yourselvers more if you remember this. End of lesson !

2006-04-20T02:02:00.000-07:00

First match for 20 days !

Despite having a brilliant family holiday in Florida, after 20 days with no fishing I was really looking forward to the Wednesday open at Willinghurst, especially as I'd had an update from my chauffeur (Don Garnish) and it had really started to pick up over the bank holiday weekend with a number of weights over 150lb.

I wanted to try something different at Willinghurst and decided to abandon the usual Pellett and corn attack and try luncheon meat instead. In the past, it hasn't been that successful but I had caught a few fish on it during the winter so thought it was worth a try. I pushed a few slices of meat through a riddle to give me some hook bait and for feed I liquidized the rest of the tin and added some crazy bait gold GB. This would be my basic feed with some hemp and a few hookbaits added.

I arrived at Willinghurst to find a disappointing turnout of only 15 anglers, due I expect to the fact that having had matches on the bank holiday Friday and Monday, plus the usual weekend matches, I'm sure some people needed to get back to work for a rest ! The lakes to be fished were New and Old and with only the best pegs in, I didn't mind where I drew. So, in went the right hand and out came Peg 13 on New which I really fancied as it had some recent form and a lot of room.

Unlike winter when you are usually just fishing for a few fish, and need to set up everything from Waggler, to lead and pole etc etc, I decided to make it a pole only attack fishing at 12 metres, 7 metres and down the edge to my left. All my rigs were 0.16 G Line using 4x12 KC Porth floats - except for a paste rig I thought I'd give a go.

I kicked off by feeding a pot of bait at 12 metres and a bit down the edge and started off on the
7 metres paste line to nick a couple of early fish................................well that was the plan anyway ! After 20 biteless minutes, I switched to the long line where the ripple was making the float very hard to see no matter what colour float tip I used, although it mattered little as the float refused to go under anyway ! Another twenty minutes passed and it was time to start bagging on the inside...............not ! With three hours gone, I had 2 roach in the net and was beginning to not only think that I'd picked the wrong bait but was already thinking of excuses to use when I had to write about it later !

I'd refed both lines a couple of times in an attempt to kick start both swims and at ten past two I had my first carp, a fish of about 6lb from the edge swim, next cast I had a decent crucian and I began to think that I might now catch a few fish. When fishing down the edge I've found that you need to rest the swim each time you catch a fish or they just dont come back, so with my long line devoid of fish I thought I'd have another go fishing paste, but this time at 7 metres straight out in front of me. I didn't expect to catch on this but just needed to rest the edge swim, anyway, I cupped in my paste with a bit of hemp and sat back to await developments. After a couple of minutes the float moved slightly and although it didn't go under I couldn't contain my excitement and struck. A couple of minutes later I netted another plump 6 pounder and the moment of truth came when I looked in the landing net - was it foul hooked or in the mouth ?
Yippeeee, it was inthe mouth which could mean I'd catch a few more. Next cast the float went straight under and I was now beginning to enjoy myself. By switching between the edge and paste swims, I managed to add about another 9 fish before the peg dried up and left me with a blank last half hour. Alan Wood won the match from peg 12 on the Old Lake with 100lb+ of big fish caught on catfood down the edge and Nick Stunt drew Peg 14 on Old (with nobody on Peg 8 behind him) and weighed in 86lb for second place. I knew I had about 65lb and was hoping to at least nick the section but I finished up with 73-1-0, just one fish short of Steve Gardener (Old 7) 79-12-0 and Mick Keeper (New 6) 79-1-0. All in all a frustrating day to come so close to the frame places having not caught for the first three hours and with a blank last half hour, but never the less an enjoyable day and far better than working !
I'm off to Willinghurst again on Saturday where I'm going to try paste again and I am also really looking forward to the following weeks "Total Fishings" weekend bash at Witherington Farm - Watch this space for further news.

2006-03-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

My final match before a self imposed 20 day "No match" holiday break was my usual wednesday open at.............. suprise, suprise..........Willinghurst !

The successful baits in winter at Willinghurst tend to be corn and maggot but with the warmer weather arriving, catfood guru, local expert and my regular Willinghurst chauffeur Don Garnish had caught on it the previous saturday and with the lakes a lot more coloured following a few days of rain, I decided to give it a go as I thought a smelly rather than a visible bait might be better.

When fishing catfood on the hook I usually feed catfood "mush" and in true Blue Peter style, here is how I prepare it ! The night before fishing I take a tin of catfood and push it through a riddle twice, I then add a handfull of hemp, and some betaine dissolved in water, mix it all up and tip it into a bottle - usually a plastic milk bottle with a screw cap. Then wash the bottle, as some catfood will have "escaped" and will be on the outside of the bottle. I then put it overnight in the fridge. When you want to feed it during the match, you can just take the lid off the bottle and squeeze a blob into your pole cup without having to touch the stuff. One "Top Tip", don't prepare the catfood when the "other half" is about as it can make a bit of a mess, it stinks and for some strange reason, women don't seem to like the smell of catfood.

Anyway, the match was on Old and New Lake and with only 20 pegs in, there weren't really any that I didn't mind drawing. Don drew before me and picked out Old 13 and I drew Old 14, so at least we could have a chat ! Peg 14 on Old is a funny peg where depending on the conditions, it is either crap or really good. Most of the fish you catch on it you catch by fishing along the bank to a gap where the Old and New lakes join together. If the wind blows in certain directions, then the water "tows" through the gap and the fish don't seem to hang around. But if the water is not moving too much then odd fish can be ambushed as they swim between the two lakes and as some of them are "doubles", you don't need many to build a weight.

I kicked off the match by feeding a big pot of "Catfood Mush" on my long pole line - the rig for Howards benefit (as he wanted me to give more information regarding rigs etc) was .16 G line a 4x12 KC Porth float and a size 16 B911 - I was also wearing a pair of grey thermal socks and a rather fetching pair of blue and grey stripey boxer shorts !

As well as feeding long, I also fed a small toss pot of "mush" down the edge and whilst leaving both lines to settle cast out a small lead with double hair rigged red maggott. The lead line was completely dead with not even a liner in the first half an hour, despite casting about the peg to try and find a fish or two. Don on the next peg hadn't had a sign on the lead either, neither had Eddie Greeen on Peg 12 - this was odd as a large shoal of carp usually sit somewhere between pegs 12 and 14 and someone at least gets an indication or two that shows where the fish are.

My first "Visit" down the edge resulted in a fish of about 6lb but then I was either "Roached Out" or I'd foul hook a carp - the two I foul hooked came off almost straight away. This was turning out to be a very frustrating day as nobody seemed to be catching much, Dave Lewis on Peg 7 was catching the odd small carp and was probably winning the match but most others only had one or two fish at the most. I had the feeling that if I could just put a few fish in the net, then I could well be in with a chance. To make things worse, my first look on the long pole line resulted in the line getting caught around the top of the pole as I hooked a carp and my rig come back minus a hook. This is the first time that it has happened to me and is fairly scarey when you hook a carp which is probably between 5lb and 10lb with no elastic !

With an hour to go, (which I actually thought was two, as I hadn't put my watch forward at the weekend), I'd had one fish on the long pole and a further, 4 down the edge, making my total catch 5 carp, 1 crucian, 4 gudgeon and some roach. Looking around the lakes, everyone on new lake was struggling and on my lake I was certainly up with the leaders. I then decided it was all or nothing and fed a big pot of mush on the inside line in a vain attempt to kick start the peg.

I went out on the long pole whilst the inside settled but the wind had got up and made presentation very difficult as I was fishing with a short line and the lake had started to tow quite a lot - I was itching to get back down the edge but didn't want to go down there before the feed had settled properly and a fish or two had moved over it. So, I had a couple of quick chucks on the bomb which resulted in a few chewed maggots thanks to Mr Roach before it was time to spend the last 50 minutes by the gap. Within 10 seconds of my bait hitting the bottom, the float buried and a firm strike resulted in two inches of grey hydro streaming out of the pole as another roach made it's bid for freedom ! Next cast a little more elastic came out and soon a rather nice double figure carp was nestling in my landing net, the next three casts gave me three more roach as it seemed as though I was just picking up odd carp that were either trying to swim into or out of the other lake. With about twenty minutes to go, I hooked my last carp and this was one of those that had been down the gym, one of those where despite how much you pull and change the direction of your pole tip to try and change the direction it is swimming in, you just can't get it's head up. With ten minutes to go I finally gained control and managed to net a fish of about 12lb which was a very welcome bonus.

From what I'd heard from the New Lake, the top weight on there was only was only likely to be
about 25lb and although I hadn't thought about winning the match as you usually need 60lb+ even when it's cold, I couldn't see anyone on the Old lake that I thought had beaten me.
Sure enough, when Brian Wallin came round to do the weighing in, the needle bounced round to 50lb, before settling back to 48-8-0. Don had 36lb and it looked as though this was going to be a car 1-2 for us. Jed Cooper finished third from Peg 11 with a not very impressive 26lb and Steve Gardener won New Lake with 26lb. All in all for me, a very frustrating day, I was fishing quite large pieces of catfood on the hook but still couldn't avoid the roach and also if the wind hadn't got up, I think I'd have had a few more on the long pole. However a match win and £90 in the back pocket can't be sneezed at as I sign off from blogging now until my next match on 19th April. Speak to you all soon - Pikey

2006-03-27T05:23:00.000-08:00

As promised, following on from the Wednesday open at Willinghurst, I returned for another go on saturday. This time the match was on New and Pittance lake and and after four matches on the Masters League where I drew Pittance and averaged 45lb per match, I couldn't wait to get up there again. So, in went the lucky right hand into the draw bag (actually it was Mick Seymours hat) and out came................................Peg 5 on the New lake ! Boxxocks ! A couple of months ago the peg had been fishing well but of late, the majority of fish had been in the big bay
to my left.

The weather had warmed up over the last day or two with night time temperatures of about 9 degrees and they were threatening that it was going to reach 12 or 13 degrees over the weekend and with the wind blowing nicely from behind, I decided to just set up a long pole and a waggler. The match began and despite the usual Willinghurst feeding pattern of 2 pieces of corn and 3 pellets, I decided to give them a big pot of hemp and 3 mm pellets laced with a couple of pieces of corn. I left that to settle and went out on the waggler at full depth. After half an hour of searching the peg (that's a good way of saying that I'm crap at casting) I'd foulhooked two carp whilst reeling in. Now I'm not exactly einstein but even I could work out that the fish were possibly up in the water, so I took two foot of the depth and immediately had my first fish (a carp of about 5lb) on a piece of squashed corn.

At this point the wind got up and the rain came, which resulted in all the "up in the water" activity ceasing and a further 30 minutes of inactivity on my part. I then went back on the "bottom rig" and had another 5lber on corn - although as the hook was about a foot and a half from it's mouth, I don't think it mattered what was on the hook !

Looking around the lake, not a lot was happening although as expected the pegs to my left were producing a few fish. Jed Cooper on the point was catching a few on his new secret Strawberry flavoured jelly pellets which he was convinced were making all the difference until he put a piece of corn on at the float dipped straightaway. I kept telling him that it didn't matter what was on the hook if you had fish feeding in your peg but he still didn't believe me.

To cut a long (and boring) story short, with 80 minutes to go, a few fish turned up on my pole line and I finished up with 8 for 40lb and lost one in a snag in front of me that I never knew was there.

Gavin Clarke had turned up late, drew one of my favourite pegs - Pittance 16 and caught 18 carp down the edge for 75lb, to finish just ahead of Godfrey Chadd - (wot no fish) with 69lb from peg 13 on the New lake. Jed Cooper filled third place with 58lb - thanks to his jelly pellets and my team mate Peter" The Major" Turnbull was 4th with 54lb from Peg 7 on Pittance.

Guess where I'm going Wednesday ?

2006-03-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Howard (Margin Pig) , for kick starting my Blogging ! A number of the matches I will fish this summer will be Leatherhead DAS club matches so if Howard's blogging continues then you'll get both sides of the story - ie how I got duffed up on both sides and how I finished in the money. However, at this moment in time, I am not prepared to say who will be writing which story !

Anyway, the first match of my blogging season was a Wednesday Open at Willinghurst and having just finished running the Willinghurst Masters series, where even I have to admit, I did have some half reasonable draws - well ok very good draws, I was due a duff peg or two.

Now, in the summer Peg 20 on the New lake can be a very very good peg when the wind blows into it but with the recent temperatures hovering around freezing and the peg with little form, I was really not looking forward to the next 6 hours - although it would still be better than working !

The list of attendees included the usual wednesday work shy skivers and old boys including venue expert, Donald Garnish esq, Harry the Hat, Alan Harrington and John Clifford, not to mention a couple of fairly useful anglers by the name of William Raison and Steve Gardener (who both drew fliers )!

Anyway, the one thing you need a Willighurst is a bit of room so I was therefore less than impressed to find that Mick Seymour had drawn peg 1 which is probably less than 30 metres away and this looked like another case of Stevie Wonder doing the pegging !

Ten thirty arrived and having fed two lines down the edge (one each side) with a couple of bits of corn and a few pellets, and one swim at 11 metres, I then (more in hope) lobbed a lead out slightly to my right with double red maggott. I placed the rod in the rest, tightened up the line and sat back for what I thought was going to be a long wait. How wrong you can be sometimes, as within a minute the tip had moved slightly, not a "rod off the rest" job that you quite often get when fishing a hair rig but a bite none the less. I picked up the rod to find the solid resistance of a fish that certainly wasn't a 2lber. For a fish of it's size, it didn't put up much of a fight but I didn't complain as about thirty seconds later, I was winning the match with 14lb in the net !

The rest of the match was very boring (apart from the banter) with not a bite in the edge to the left or out in front. Mick Seymour opposite had managed to catch one fish in the edge that I told him had swirled in his peg when he was facing the other way ! and Don had caught one carp from the flier on the point (even I'd had 75lb from it two matches previous) but with the other lakes fishing as hard, due I'm sure to the horrible cold wind, it wasn't going to take a massive weight to win.

Luckily as the match wore on, the anglers in the pegs where the fish had shoaled up started to catch, Steve Gardener on Old 4 was putting a few fish together as was Alan Harrington on Old 14 and Don on the point. By this time with 4 hours since my last bite, I decided to have a go for a few roach and even using double caster on my .14 carp rig, I could still catch a few. Personally the match petered out with me recording 15-8-0 on the scales which was just enough to win the section by default as Don finished 2nd with 50-14-0. Alan Harrington took first place with 54-0-0. Steve Gardener sneaked in 3rd, just ahead of Steve "Grumpy" Collins, with Will Raison taking the top lake section with 30lb from peg 28.

I'm back there again saturday so look on here next week for the next thrilling installment.