There has been a great deal of talk in the angling press recently on the topic of gardening (the pruning of excessive foliage to make your swim more accessible) and I seem to recall a young lad missed-out on qualifying for this year’s Fish’O’Mania final after being disqualified after the match for having waded into his peg and removing a fair chunk of a bankside reed bed. So why am I introducing today’s blog in such a fashion? Well, whilst I was setting-up for today’s match on the Old Lake at Willinghurst I heard a very strange and confusing noise – when I turned and looked towards the adjacent Top Lake I couldn’t believe my eyes as there was a chap standing there with a rechargeable hedge trimmer happily hacking away at his peg!!!
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| Looking towards the far bank of Old Lake |
Today’s match was a small (10 peg) open at Willinghurst. I’ve only been there a couple of times – the first was a pleasure session on the Horseshoe Lake over ten years ago; the second two years ago when I drew the ‘Bung Hole’ on the Top Lake and somehow contrived to win a very tight match. However today’s match was on the Old Lake so when I drew peg 8 it didn’t really mean anything!
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| Overhead view of Old Lake (right) |
Old Lake has about 25 pegs and is a good looking venue with lots of lush foliage. The north end of the lake is quite narrow so despite having permanent pegs on both sides only one bank is normally included in a match, conversely the southern end is more of a bowl so there are normally anglers facing each other on either side.
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| Luke Sheriff and Martin Johnson in action |
Peg 8 essentially sots where the two parts of the lake join and I was the first angler not to be double-banked. I could just about reach the platform opposite with a good chuck of a feeder on my 10’ tip rod and I was told there was a shallow gravel bar running along the centre of the peg. I decided to investigate for myself and the information was indeed correct – casting down the middle with a decent lead saw no ‘drop’ whatsoever (as soon as the lead hit the water it seemed to hit the bottom) and a slow retrieve saw a distinct tap, tap, tap as the lead danced across the stony bar.
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| Bright baits played their part today |
It is worth noting at this stage that matches are normally a bit of a marathon at Willinghurst – this match was scheduled for 1030-1700 but as everybody was ready we started early at ten fifteen!!! In all fairness the first three and three quarter hours were pretty slow – I could only manage a roach and a foul-hooked gudgeon on 8mm pellets on the short pole, and just one carp and a few skimmers on the method/bomb atop the shallow central bar. A few chucks on the method to the platform opposite were fruitless so out of desperation I tried the jigga 13m – this only led to another skimmer and a lost carp but kept me amused for an hour or so! (In hindsight it was almost certainly too shallow to fish shallow and I can’t see this ever being a productive tactic on this lake.)
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| Waiting for a pull |
The period from two o’clock until three thirty was better however – seven good pulls on the tip over the shallow bar saw three carp and a good skimmer in the net, plus three more carp that disappeared into the ether! (Though at least I’d boosted my weight from twelve to thirty pounds.) Luckily the final 90 minutes were pretty blockbuster – I fed two margin lines with groundbait but didn’t get to try them properly as it was at times literally one a bung on the straight lead with carp turning-up in numbers and ripping the rod off the rest within thirty seconds of the rig landing on the shallow bar. This late run boosted my total to 73-0-0, not quite good enough but fairly close to Mark ‘Cano’ Cain’s winning 105-0-0, Mick Keeper’s second placed 92-0-0 and Martin Johnson’s 87-8-0 for third.
Until next time …
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