One of the interesting things about fishing at this time of year is the serious temperature swing can be experienced during a day – whilst the weathermen were predicting a lovely spring afternoon the view from by bedroom window was distinctly frosty first thing this morning! Such temperature changes typically lead to one thing – a very slow start followed by a frantic end to the match!
Freezing!
I was back to Willinghurst again today and with 30 plus anglers gracing the banks of Old, New and John’s Lake another good draw was certainly the order of the day. Unfortunately my prolific drawing record at Willinghurst had to end at some point and today was the day – I drew the right lake (Old) but unfortunately peg 5 isn’t one that many people would run to!
With a nice warm breeze blowing from right to left the pegs at the end of the narrow section of Old Lake (occupied by Daiwa Dorking’s Pemb Wrighting and Tommy Hiller) looked like the place to be – unfortunately peg 5 is in the main bowl and is in the part of the lake that is double-banked (and hence doesn’t have a far bank to chuck to). The favoured pegs in this part of the lake are the two ends (1 and 26) with the remaining pegs being a little hit-and-miss – these pegs look featureless but there is in fact a shallow bar running through the middle that can be accessed from either side, though in essence these are open water pegs which are at their best when the fish are up in the water and there to be caught on the waggler.
Dan Cooper on peg 3
As expected things got off to a slow start for most (though not Pemb and Tommy) – my only bite of the first hour came from the shallow bar with a 24g mini Guru Hybrid feeder with a Ringers chocolate orange wafter and my only bite of the second hour came from the same spot with bomb and bread. The third hour actually yielded two bites – another carp from the bar to the Hybrid and chocolate orange wafter combination, and one that fell-off from a shorter line that I had been loose-feeding with 8mm pellets. (This fish was hooked on the straight lead with a Ringers pellet wafter – my suspicion is that these actually float even when used with a size 12 QM1 so more tank tests are needed before I try one of these on the hook again.)
The usual suspects ...
Unfortunately the second half of my match wasn’t much better – the fourth hour saw just a single pull from yet another carp to the Hybrid and chocolate orange wafter combination and the fifth hour only lead to a single pull on the bomb and bread (that fell-off). Prior to the final hour I had started to feed a margin line with 7mm meat and dead red maggots – this line would eventually lead to the best fish of the day (hooked five minutes before the ‘all out’, landed ten minutes after) to go with one more on the Hybrid.
The scores on the doors ...
This meant I ended-up with five smaller carp on the tip and one larger specimen from the edge for a total of 32-8-0 – not a great score but not miles behind venue experts Dan Cooper to my right (six carp on the waggler for 44lb from peg 3) and Jason Morgan to my left (40lb from peg 9). As expected Pemb (105-12-0) and Tommy (95-0-0) filled the top two places on the lake, with local legend Dave Carter taking third with an excellent 64-8-0 from the peg directly opposite mine.
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