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.

Wednesday Open – 9th May 

Steve Sanders (he of KC Angling & KC Carpa floats fame) continued his winning ways yesterday, this time from peg 6 on the New Lake. He fished a little method feeder with pellet on the hook to catch around 15 carp for his 79 lb total. Second man Don switched between cat meat and paste to catch 9 or 10 fish for his 77 lbs. He fished at about 8 metres on the pole. The weather that had been so nice up to about a week ago has now turned really nasty. We had patchy rain throughout the day but the gentle breeze turned into a full blown gale by the end of the match and at the final whistle most of us were pleased to pack up and get inside the cabin for a cup of tea.

Once more New lake didn’t live up to its full potential. Considering that all of the fish from Old Lake are in there together with the New Lake fish it should be solid and there were certainly an awful lot of carp swirling around at half depth. But they’re just not feeding properly and nobody can understand why. I guess that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching.

One last snippet – on last Saturday’s match there was a guy in the draw queue who I was sure that I knew but I just couldn’t place him. In the past I’ve walked around people and read their name from the back of their sponsored clothing but this time no such luck. Eventually I got a chance to peek at the draw list and realised it was an old Dorking member called Rob Mittens. I remember fishing a match on Medley between 2 or 3 tackle shops many years ago. I won it (must have drawn a flyer) and Rob was 2nd. I won a silver trophy and he won a rod….I was so pissed off about that !!. Anyhow Rob drew next to me last week so I asked the inevitable question, “Where you been for the last 30 years ?” and got the answer “working” LOL, just too funny. He explained that in those days he had 3 young kids and that he simply didn’t have the time or inclination to continue competitive fishing. Nowadays his kids have grown up and sadly he lost his wife last year, so he’s going to do some fishing again. He’s very welcome and once he gets himself some modern gear instead of trying to catch carp on a stick float I’m sure he’ll do just fine, anyhow, it’s great to see him back.