By Mark Murdoch | No Comments
Last updated: Monday, March 24, 2008

With no team commitments over the bank holiday weekend and strict instructions that I was only allowed out on Sunday due to family I’d decided that I would go to Stubpond. I hadn’t been there for a while and I wanted to meet a new angler by the name of Andy Walker who had contacted me and was interested in team fishing.

It would be an opportunity to see him in action on what can be a particularly difficult water to suss out. By Friday I was looking at the weather forecast and thinking maybe I’d have been better buying a pair of skis as the forecast for the South East was snow. Bloody snow, someone is taking the mickey. But having arranged to meet Andy, who was coming from Enfield which is about a 65 mile journey, I decided that no weather was going to stop me, and Andy’s enthusiasm had to be encouraged.

The draw was at 9am so I’d arranged to meet Andy just off the M25 at 8.30 and when I got up out of my pit I looked out the window and saw everything was fine. No snow, no wind so I made a cup of coffee, sorted out my gear into the car and made plans to ring up the BBC weather people and give them a piece of my mind.

I met Andy as arranged and made our way down the A22 to Stubpond. As we arrived in the car park there was a distinct lack of cars and I could only see Barry Upperton ( pictured below on left with Rob Harman ) and his boy Pete Upp.

I had a quick cuppa and a walk up to Plantation lake with Andy where the match was, and gave him a quick run down on the methods we’d discussed on the phone. When I said pellet waggler I am sure he looked at me a bit strange but I assured him it would work even though it was bitterly cold. Then as we were walking back to the draw it happened. Yes it only started snowing! Not just a few little bits but proper clonking great flakes of snow and they were starting to lay by the time we got back to the car park.
Now a few people must have believed the snow reports because in the end we only had six for the match. We sorted out some pegs and paid our money and then had the draw. The queue wasn’t very long. In fact we all fitted in Rob, the fishery managers office.

I drew 57 which I was quite happy with and Zac Brown from Preston Innovations Delcac drew next to me on 58. Andy drew peg 4 on the opposite bank.

By the time I got to my peg it was snowing hard and I was not looking forward to a match which looked like it was going to be a real chore. I set up a 4 swan pellet waggler to fish 18 inches deep with an eyed 16 911 with a band on a hair for fishing pellet, and a straight lead with 12 PR36 with a long hair for fishing popped up bread.

I started on the waggler but nothing happened, not even a sniff to keep me interested so I picked up the bomb rod and put three punched out 12mm pellets of bread, put them on the hair and cast it up to the boards. After half an hour still nothing.

I’d been pinging a few 10 mil pellets over to the board and thought I might as well put one of these on the hair so a hair rigged pellet was dispatched to the boards to entice those not very accommodating fish. I went for the old cup of coffee trick and sure enough the tip went round and carp number one was on.

He was about 8lb and very welcome as no one had a carp yet. I put on another pellet but after another biteless half hour I decided I’d try some 8mm white chocolate boilies (pictured below) I’d picked up at the NEC Fishing Show the other week.

To be honest I’d lobbed them in my bag as an after thought earlier that morning but I thought “you never know” so I put two of them on the hair and lobbed them to the board. Zac still hadn’t had a bite and asked me “any more bites “to which I was about to reply “No” when the tipped wazzed (is that a word?) round and carp number two was on. He then asked me what I had on the hook and I told him. I won’t print his reply but it revolved around the fact he didn’t have any boilies and a load of swear words.
I had four more carp on the boilies mid match and then the weather which to be fair had picked up got colder and the last two hours were uneventful for me.

By the end of the match I had six carp, Barry had six, Andy had four and Peter had four. Andy had caught most of his in the last two hours on the bread and Barry had caught on the pellet waggler in the snow. How mad is that !

My six carp weighed 34lb and Barry was second with 27lb so I put a few quid in my pocket. In his first match there Andy Walker weighed a very respectable 24lb so I think I’ve definitely found an angler with promise for our team.

Analysing my own match I reckon the white boilies just stood out a bit better than a pellet although I don’t know why I didn’t catch any on the bread. Maybe they weren’t there when I was fishing the bread and maybe they were there when I had the boilies on.

Some of our boys have gone to Whitevane today to bag up on bream and if I get a chance I’ll post the result later today. By contrast I have been doing some domestics and it’s been out with the power tools.

Roll on next weekend. Final round of the Sussex Silver Fish League at Passies on Sunday which we have two teams in. So I’ll keep you posted and lets all hope it’s not snowing!