It’s probably something of an overused cliché to say that British people are obsessed with the weather but it did have quite a bearing on today’s match so here’s a summary of Friday’s meteorological conditions: sunny spells followed by snow followed by sunny spells followed by sleet followed by sunny spells followed by hail followed by sunny spells followed by rain followed sunny spells followed by thunder! Oh and did I mention the hard overnight frosts? Don’t you just love spring in England???
Nice day for it!
Today’s match saw another return visit to Willinghurst and for once the forecast was fairly settled – yet another harsh frost first thing but the experts were at least predicting plenty of sunshine and very little wind. My draw would see me on Old Lake once again – as my regular peg 10 wasn’t in the hat I had to settle for peg 11 instead! This was the peg that Pemb Wrighting won from on my last outing two weeks ago and to add to the pressure I was sandwiched between venue expert Kris Fields (13) and Delcac’s Jamie Granger (9), plus I was on the same lake as Apollo Guildford’s Luke Sheriff, Lee Simmons and Tony Corpes – and as if that wasn’t enough I also had to contend with bagging machine Rob Harvey and All the Gear, No Idea stalwart Claire ‘Bagger’ Hollis!!!
Peg 11 is essentially the same as peg 10 that I’ve described in previous posts – there is a shallow bar running through the middle of the peg at a range of 20m and there is the far bank to chuck to at something like 40m. The deeper water between the bar and the far bank can also be productive but the near margin and the deeper water in front of the bar seem less appealing (as the fish are generally reluctant to come this side of the bar). As a result I decided to leave the pole in the bag and instead went with two tip rods – one clipped-up to drop onto the bar and the other for fishing into the deeper water beyond the bar and for fishing to the platform opposite.
All the gear ...
One thing that was very different today when compared to two weeks ago was the wind – two weeks ago there was loads of it blowing from right to left towards end peg 13 and today there basically wasn’t any at all! What was also very apparent were the number of cruising carp that could be seen just under the surface – I thought there were loads in my peg but when I wondered down to see Lee Simmons on peg 5 and Bagger on peg 3 it was like an aquarium!!! On the off chance that these cruisers were actually going to have a chew I also set-up a pellet waggler rod – this consisted of 6lb Guru pulse line with a link swivel trapped between some large Guru float stops (two below and one above) and a 25cm hooklength of 0.19 N-Gauge to a size 16 MWG with a hair-rigged pellet band. Floats would either be a 4g Drennan Carp Waggler or a 4/5g Drennan Shorty.
The view to my right
Given the overnight frost and the bright/still conditions I was expecting a slow start but I was rather hoping for more than two bites in the first two hours! I started with bomb and bread to the far side and had anticipated a few early mug fish to be hanging under the platform opposite – when these didn’t materialise I began rotating between the bar, the deeper water (fed with a few Ringers 10mm pellets via a catapult) and the far side. The first bite came at 1145 (we started at 1030 today) from the deeper water to a Ringers chocolate orange water on the bomb and the second from the far bank to a 24g mini Hybrid feeder – the first one made it to the net but unfortunately the second came off in a snag 5m in front of peg 10. So not a prolific start!!!
A photo of some pellets and two catapults!
The highlight of the third and fourth hours was a visit from Daiwa Dorking’s Dave Guntrip who exited with quote of the day: “the reason we all go fishing is because we f**king hate it.” Classic! On the fishing front things were still tortuously slow and despite rotating between my three legering lines and some rather frustrating spells trying to mug a cruiser on the pellet waggler I only managed to put two small carp in the net – one from the bar with a Hybrid feeder and a 6mm pellet hookbait and another from the far side with the same feeder but with a chocolate orange wafter on the hair.
Just like a mill pond
As with many venues the final two hours are normally the most productive on the Old Lake at Willinghurst – however when the first 90 minutes of those two hours only produced two more small carp I was staring down the barrel of a DNW. Luckily the final half an hour included a golden spell of two carp and two nice (3lb) skimmers in four chucks onto the bar with a Hybrid feeder and a 6mm pellet – this gave me a total of 7 carp and 2 skimmers, not a huge amount of fish but at least enough to make it worth troubling the scalesman on what had been a tough day for most.
Today's winner, Lee Simmons
In the end my nine fish pulled the dial down to a flat 40lb – as it turned-out this was good enough for fourth on the lake, better than I thought but annoyingly one out of the money as they were paying the top 3 on each lake today!
Willinghurst is certainly an interesting venue as the winning pegs seem to vary from week to week – today the three end/corner pegs failed to produce (despite having anglers of the calibre of Tony Corpse, Rob Harvey and Kris Fields sat on them) and the top three weights on the lake formed a triangle around the main bowl with Lee Simmons top from peg 5 (84-2-0), Luke Sherriff second from peg 24 (65-0-0) and Jamie Grainger third from peg 9 (62-8-0). (The top scores from John’s Lake were Jason Morgan (peg 37, 77-4-0), Giovanni Barbatto (peg 1 (flyer), 70-4-0) and Shaun Sylvester (peg 45, 53-8-0).)
So another hard but enjoyable day at Willinghurst - but more importantly it's now "next stop White Acres"!!!
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