Saturday Open 2nd June 2007

The fishing at the moment is enough to make you want to pull your hair out.  For a few weeks now the fish have been in mid water, everybody was suffering from foul hookers. Then last weekend when it was freezing cold the fish got their heads down and fed properly. Wednesday was a bit “iffy” and then on Saturday it was a case of deja vu…foul hookers galore and the fish just wouldn’t feed except in a few isolated pegs. There were 4 100 lb plus weights but there were plenty of people that seemed to have a thousand pounds of fish in their peg yet they just couldn’t get a bite. It’s very frustrating !!.

I wasn’t at Willinghurst today, we had a club match at Framfield in Sussex but if there was anything exciting to report, I’ll post it after Wednesday’s match.

Bank Holiday Monday – 28th May 2007

Brrr it’s nearly June and today it’s tipped it down with rain all day. When you combine that with a strong North Easterly wind you get BRRR (that’s 6 degrees C in normal language).

It’s been a very strange weekend at Willinghurst, as the weather got worse, the fishing got better. Going back to Saturday, Molesey had another of their league matches on the Top Lake. Malcolm Fowler won it from peg 25 on the back spit with 85 lbs but weights were terrible, with only 42 lb needed for third place. The open match on Saturday was held on Horseshoe and Pittance lakes. Pittance hadn’t been match fished since the winter so those lucky souls that drew it were full of trepidation. They needn’t have worried, the top 5 weights came from that lake with Steve Collins winning the match with 107 lbs.

The Sunday match was on Top and New lakes, and the general opinion was that you needed to draw New lake to have any chance of winning. That turned out to be true, with the top 2 weights coming from that lake. In an exciting finish the Cod just beat Delbert by one fish (127 lb vs 120 lb). Peg 12 on Top lake (the blue pipe peg) came good with a fine weight of 106 lb from Micky Fitz for third place overall. There were quite a few other seventy and eighty pound weight from Top lake, a big improvement on the previous day.

Today’s match was fished in conditions worse than a normal winters day but the fish were again in the mood to feed. The match was on Top lake and again the blue pipe took top honours. Peter Turnbull fished paste at 5 metres to catch steadily throughout the day for a very good weight of 130 lbs 8 ozs. there were two other “tons” and plenty of good backing weights from both the main lake and the spit. It seemed like the cold rain actually sent the fish down to the bottom where they were happy to feed, a welcome change from the swirls and foul hookers of the last few weeks. Let’s hope that the fish now stay down there and we’ll all get some good fishing.

This rain is doing wonders for the recently dredged Old lake. The water level is now about 18″ below the banks. I’ll take a couple of piccys when I’m there on Wednesday to let you see the progress.

Wednesday Open – 23rd May 2007

Last Sunday was my worst day at Willinghurst since the middle of winter.Sitting on peg 20 with people all around me catching fish I was well and truly pissed off. So when there were 5 pegs left in the hat this morning including peg 20 I was fearing the worst. Don drew 22, Pikey 23, Eddie G 21. that left 20 and 27 in the hat and me and the Cod to draw. Of course I drew 20 again !!. Why is it that you can never draw a winning peg two matches on the trot, yet it’s so easy to draw the same crap one time and time again. I had the hump big time, wasn’t even sure if I was going to bother setting up, I didn’t need another 6 hours of misery. The thing that absolutely does your head in when fishing that peg is that the flyers 22, 23, 24 and 21 are all around you. If I was sitting in amongst a patch of crap draws where everybody was struggling then it wouldn’t be bad but you have to sit there as all around you catch carp after carp…it’s soul destroying.

Eventually set up a little method feeder and chucked that out. Fished it for 2 hours without even a liner. Set up a pole and caught two carp then gave up. Couldn’t get back to the car because it was over the bridge that’s out of bounds during matches, so cleaned out my carryall, had a sleep on the grass with Murphy the dog and was out of there the minute the all-out sounded. As suspected, all of the top weights came from the back spit except for the winning weight of Steve Sanders who once more fished a pellet feeder to weigh in over 160 lbs and virtually double the next weight.

If I draw 20 again within the next week or two I’m definitely not bothering to go to the peg, I don’t need another stiff neck !!

Matches Saturday & Sunday 19th / 20th May 2007

It’s been a surreal kind of weekend, a herd / flock / pride of llamas walked past me on the other bank on Saturday, I dreamed that I was last on the Leatherhead Club Match on Sunday with 40 lbs and then as I took Murphy the dog out for his late night constitutional there was a guy on a bike stroking a dead seagull !!.

First things first, the Saturday open was on Top lake and the hot draws were going to be 4, 6 or anywhere in the back spit (pegs 22 – 28). I managed to draw 25 which has been on top form for several months now. The only problem is that at the moment it’s an out and out feeder peg, a gentle lob to the far bank and wait for the tip to go round. I really don’t do feeder fishing so first task was to scrounge a couple of flat in-line feeders from the Cod. I’d watched Steve Sanders fishing the feeder a few days earlier so I was hopeful of doing it roughly right. Amazingly I was better than alright, I only hooked the far bank a few times and didn’t lose either feeder. Even better I managed to catch 109 lbs of carp for second place in the match, well beaten by Ian Summers on peg 6 who had 124 lbs of big fish, all caught during the second half of the match. It was whilst staring at a motionless tip that the Llamas wandered along the far bank. Each of them was on a sort of dog lead and was led by a human being. There were around six of them all told. I muttered something to the effect of “they’re the weirdest sheep I’ve ever seen” to my neighbour whose response was a casual “yeah”. Perhaps they didn’t exist and he was just humouring me…who knows ?.

I’ve been a member of Leatherhead & District A.S. for a good many years and try to fish as many of their club matches as possible. The first match of the season took place yesterday on Willinghurst Top Lake. I knew that I needed to draw a low number or the back spit but failed miserably by drawing peg 20. It’s a decent peg with some good form a few months back but that whole side of the lake has been in the doldrums for a month or two. It’s amazing what a difference just one day makes. On Saturday everything was normal, on Sunday the carp started spawning. It wasn’t the full production where you’re likely to get wet if you sit too near to the reeds, but I would guess that maybe 20% of the carp were “at it”. The fishing was very quiet during the first part of the day but eventually the favoured pegs started to produce some fish. The top 3 weights all came from the 6 pegs in the back spit and I had a totally frustrating day waiting 15 minutes for each bite, getting a classic carp bite and finding myself attached to the tail of yet another foul-hooker. At the end of the day I’d caught 40 lbs and was nearly last…it wasn’t a dream, just a nightmare.

It was still light when I got home and I noticed a dead seagull at the side of the road. Decided that you don’t see many dead seagulls and thought nothing more of it. When I took the dog out at about 11 pm there was a teenage lad on a push bike leaning over and stroking the dead bird. How bizarre.

Open – Sunday 13th May

A very brief note today, mainly because I’ve had a nightmare of a day. The weather forecast was for heavy rain and occasional thunder, it was spot on !!. Just in case anybody is interested, I drew peg11 on New lake, caught a carp third cast and..that’s it, no more carp.

Steve Sanders continued his winning ways from peg 13 on New Lake. Fishing a little method feeder with pellet on the hook he had around 30 carp for his winning weight of 155 lbs. Barry Goddard had a lovely day on peg 18 catching a dozen big carp for a weight of 133 lb  and third place in the match went to Ian Dixon  on peg 20 with 94 lbs. Although the match was split between New and Horseshoe lake all of the top weights were caught on New Lake. I assumed that Horseshoe had suffered an off day but it sounds like the fish got the better of the anglers. Perry Stone drew flyer peg 7 and managed to lose 15 carp, Reg the Edge was on peg 9 and lost half a dozen and so the story continued all around the lake.  There are some very big fish in that lake and a setup using white hydro is never going to be any good even with the aid of a pull bung, you’ve really got to get out the heavy gear if you want to win matches on Horseshoe.

Saturday Open – 12th May

Wow, that was one windy day. The forecast was for frequent heavy showers but after light rain at the start of the match it stayed dry for the rest of the day but it certainly blew a hooley. With 3 x 100 lb weights and with 9 lb separating 2nd to 5th it was a close match. Terry the Cod spoilt it all by catching 10 lb more than me!. He caught all of his fish on the “tea bag”, that’s a small PVA bag filled with pellets in case you didn’t know. Talking to him after the match he was saying that it was almost a fluke that he caught anything at all. He’d had a few casts to the middle without any response and he’d tried in close on the pole again without any signs. Just as he was casting his tea bag back to the middle a big gust of wind simply stopped the bag in mid-air and it landed only 20 yards in front of him. Reluctant to reel in and waste the PVA bag, he tightened up the line and the rod flew off the rest, that was the first of 23 carp !!. Each time he cast in that spot the tip would go round and another carp would find its way into the keepnet. If he cast too far then the tip would sit motionless. Those fish were tightly shoaled and just wouldn’t move.

The wind was so strong and gusty that it was virtually impossible to fish a long pole and both Tony Kent and myself caught fishing cat meat close in. His peg (8) has reeds either side and he caught well this afternoon, fishing alternate sides. I was on peg 4 which has reeds to the left and people often catch along the bare bank to the right also. However I caught nothing by the reeds – not a bite, and only one carp and a tench to the right. The rest of my fish were caught using 4 sections of pole straight out in front of me.

If anybody wants to book a peg on the opens (Wed, Sat & Sun), then you need to book on 07960 882493. Don’t phone before 10 am and you can only book one week in advance. So bookings for weekend matches are taken from 10 am on the preceeding Monday. Draw for all matches is 10.00 am with fishing from 11:30 – 5:30.