After last week’s success at Sumner’s Ponds (from yet another dolly of a peg it has to be said) I was really looking forward to getting back on the bank this weekend. I had originally planned to go to Gold Valley yesterday, but the word on the street (well social media anyway, which is fortunate as I’m currently working over 300 miles away from home during the week) was that Willinghurst is the place to be at the moment – plenty of room and importantly a few more pegs where it is possible to threaten the frame from.
 |
| All very hi-tech! |
Having duly booked-in via Facebook (search for “Willinghurst fishery match results”) I arrived at the venue this morning to be greeted by a turn-out that was easily 30 plus – loads of familiar faces too with lots of the Apollo Guildford Match Team (Giovanni Barbato, Pete Franklin, Martin Johnson, Luke Sherriff, Shaun Sylvester), Daiwa Dorking (Tommy Hiller, Paul Holland, Myles levy, Robbie Taylor) and assorted superstars/venue experts (John Radford, Jason Morgan, Perry Stone, Paul Taylor, Jon Cook) all present and correct. (Whilst I enjoy going to Gold Valley it at times feels a bit cliquey, the atmosphere at today’s draw being much more friendly and welcoming.)
 |
| A nice corner peg again! |
Despite living fairly close-by I’d only actually fished Willinghurst four times previous to today’s visit (once on the Top Lake and three times on Old Lake) but my confidence was still fairly high as each time I’d drawn a flyer and my average weight across those 4 matches was a few ounces over 99lb. My draw today put me on peg 53 on John’s Lake – not one of the ponds I’d fished before, but once again a flyer as this peg provides access to the shallow bar that runs through the centre of the lake and more importantly was an end peg on the day as pegs 54 and 55 (which is the corner peg) weren’t pegged today. I had Jon Cook for company to my right, though he was 4 or 5 pegs down (I did say you get loads of room at Willinghurst).
Having plenty of features to go at (and not being familiar with the venue) I decided to cover a number of options – a tip rod for fishing onto the shallow bar, 2 pole rigs for fishing short for silvers, a rig for fishing to peg 54’s platform and a rig for fishing at the bottom of the near shelf at 11.5m to the left (effectively fishing peg 54’s 5m line).
 |
| Punched meat for the bomb/feeder |
I spent the first two hours of the match legering on the shallow bar – first cast with a chocolate orange wafter, second with a 10mm piece of punched meat and third with a small Hybrid feeder and pellet. All three showed signs of liners, but I didn’t get my first pull (from a small carp) until the end of the first hour after rotating back to punched meat. In an effort to make something happen (as I was already falling behind Jason Morgan and Martin Johnson opposite who were catching on the long pole) I then tried pinging a few White Acres 6mm pellets (which are more like a small 8mm) over the top – this led to an immediate pull from a good carp to a chocolate orange wafter, but sadly nothing else, leaving me to finish the first 120 minutes with just two carp in the net.
 |
| The view to the left |
In order to at least get a few bites and put something in the net I started hour 3 fishing short for silvers with maggots. I’d been feeding a line to my left for a good hour so I expected immediate bites – as a result I was rather disappointed when ten minutes later I only had a translucent gudgeon to show for my efforts!!! As you can imagine the silvers rigs were soon dispatched up the bank (never to be seen again) and I decided to set-up second tip rod – whilst I normally only use one rod when fishing with the Guru X-Safe system, I went with a second today as I wanted to alternate between casting to the shallow bar and the parallel bank to the left, and as these features were at different distances it was easier to have two identical set-ups but clipped-up to different distances.
 |
| A size 14 QM1 with a 12mm hair for bread |
I’ve never actually fished with bread on the bomb before (you can’t use it at venues such as Gold Valley and Sumners Ponds), but after watching an excellent video on YouTube by Paul Holland and getting my hands on one of those Guru boxes that comes with a set of punches I was ready to go. To be honest I didn’t think it was going to work (4 pieces of 10mm punched bread on a 12mm hair looks rather odd), but after casting to the bank to the left, looking around for my flask then looking back the rod was hooped-over and it was fish on in a matter of seconds!!! Unfortunately this fish was a one-off, so another on pellet from the shallow bar saw me reach the halfway point with a less than satisfactory 4 carp in the bag.
 |
| Bread - I wish I'd tried it sooner now!!! |
The fourth hour was an interesting one – for the majority of it I couldn’t buy a bite (despite rotating between the bar, the parallel bank, the 5m line and peg 54’s platform), but right in the middle of it I took three good carp in three casts on the bomb and bread from the long bank in front of peg 55!!! The final two hours followed a similar pattern - hour 5 was biteless, then in the middle of hour 6 I had another run, three pulls on bread to the left-hand bank leading to two nice carp in the net and one falling-off halfway back (in fairness this one gave a very funny bite and was probably foul-hooked in a fin or somewhere outside of the mouth at least).
 |
| Looking across the lake to Jason and Martin |
This gave me a total of 9 carp and a gudgeon for 38-1-0. I’m not sure of my final placing but at best I was third on the lake behind Jason Morgan (61-10-0) and Martin Johnson (52-2-0). As they use the continental pay-out at Willinghurst Jason was third overall behind Shaun Sylvester (77-13-0 from Top Lake peg 13) and Giovanni Barbato (66-8-0 from Old Lake peg 1).
I’m still deciding what I’d do differently if I could fish my match over again – simply casting to different spots along the parallel bank with bomb and bread for the whole six hours would certainly be an option, though fishing the long pole with meat and fishing to the shallow bar on the tip could also be very good options on their day. If I draw the same peg next weekend I’ll let you know!!!
I’m still deciding what I’d do differently if I could fish my match over again – simply casting to different spots along the parallel bank with bomb and bread for the whole six hours would certainly be an option, though fishing the long pole with meat and fishing to the shallow bar on the tip could also be very good options on their day. If I draw the same peg next weekend I’ll let you know!!!
Until next time ...
No comments:
Post a Comment