Willinghurst Top Lake

Have you ever had one of those days where you've arrived at the fishery looked at the weather conditions and decided that you must be a complete lunatic and should have stayed in bed? Well this was one of those days.

Due to taking my daughter to stay with her grandparents in Crawley over Easter, I found myself at a loose end so decided to make the most of the journey and take in a match at a different venue for a change. Through the winter I tend to stay fairly local sticking mainly to venues that I know will produce a few fish no matter what the conditions, but come the spring I like to spread my wings a bit and try places further afield.



Anyway, I arrived at the cabin where I discovered the 6 other blokes who were fishing the match sheltering from the howling wind. A discussion was going on about which pegs would be used on top lake, the aim being to put people on the fish but also where they would have the wind off their backs to make life a little comfortable. With peg decided upon the draw was made, the favored pegs were 7 or 8 either side of the aerator but my drawing arm failed again as is usual and pulled out peg 10, I was almost immediately told that I was the wrong end of the lake and that the fish had been showing around the aerator.

I decided to feed and fish 3 lines, my main line and the one I expected to catch the most fish on was the lead cast toward the centre of the lake, the second line was the long pole at 13m and finally a line in the margin toward my right, tight in against a nice fishy looking bed of reeds.

On the all in I fed a small amount of micro pellet and corn on the pole lines then cast the lead out. Within minutes I could see that the chap to my right on peg 9 was playing a fish, as was Ian Summers on peg 7 this set the tone for the first half of the match and it soon became obvious that I was fishing for second.

After about 15Min's I had my first indication of fish with a quick liner, then a few moments later the tip wrapped round and I had my first fish a common that I estimated went about 5lb. 10 Min's later the same thing happened and I put a second fish in the net. That was it for the next 2 hours, I came off the lead for a while and tried the pole to no avail, what didn't help was the lake was towing hard in the opposite direction to the wind and made it impossible to present a bait on the pole. 2 1/2 hours into the match and the tip finally went round again out of the blue and a smaller mirror of about 2lb went into the net. Why is it that those little fish go off like rockets and cause more problems when you try and net them than fish 4 times their size?

At this stage the cold wind and the shock of catching a fish forced me off my box down to the cabin to get a cup of tea and a hot pie, that is one of the best bits of fishing commercials in the winter. I returned to my peg and chucked out the lead again with double hair rigged corn and proceeded to eat my pie which warmed me up considerably, the fish were kind enough to let me finish the pie but didn't wait for me to finish drinking my cuppa. A pattern started to emerge in the second half of the match, by catapulting a few pellets over the lead I found I was getting a fish on average every 10 Min's this continued right through to the end of the match.

I was the first to be weighed in, before pulling my net out I estimated I had maybe 40lb and for those that don't know Willinghurst they have a 65lb per net rule. As I pulled my net out I realised that I had too much in the 1 net, it took 2 weighs to find that my actual weight was 74lb but due to the rules at Willinghurst this was capped at 65lb. To say I wasn't impressed by myself is an understatement and being first to weigh in wasn't sure what it could cost me. I was pretty sure that Ian Summers on peg 7 had won the match as every time I looked up he was playing a fish. Following the scales along I discovered that I had beaten everyone up to Ian,and waited to see what he weighed. A couple of weighs later and I discovered it was close with Ian putting 79lb on the scales to take top spot, I breathed a sigh of relief that my error in estimating the fish in my net hadn't cost me the match and I still managed to hang on to 2nd spot and a brown envelope. Not a bad days work really on a lake I have never fished before and from a peg that I was told was the wrong end of the lake, goes to show you never know.