Willow Park

Today is the 2007 Southern Intersite match being fished at Willow Park Ash Vale Aldershot

The intersite series is being contested by 4 sites this year

Maggotdrowners

Talk Angling

Total Fishing (good weather permitting)

Angling Forums

Maggotdrowners have 3 standing team rules for Intersite matches

1. A contestant must never knowingly fish competitively

2. winning is not an option

3. you must have fun and enjoy the day

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I had a nice steady drive down to Willow Park and arrived in time for breakfast and met up with the rest of the Maggotdrowning team

Dai had A bit of car trouble so was unable to make it down to Willow but luckily Vince found a stand-in to take his place

The team captains made the draw and I got peg 15 on Middle lake not too bad a peg and I was quite pleased as I have pleasure fished peg 15 a few times in the past and so headed off to set up looking forward to the match

Peg 15 is a corner peg with a large platform and a tree in the water to the left of the platform

And a culvert and a bay to the right of the platform

Looks real good eh ?

I was looking forward to it as although its probably a year since I last fished it I always had a good day on peg 15 with skimmers and F1's a chuck until the Carp turned up and pushed them out then it was a Carp a chuck with some real lumps and a few decent Tench coming from under the tree later on

So with that in mind I set up 3 main lines

1 straight out in front at 8m where I hope to catch skimmers and F1's

1 tight into the tree to my left where I hoped to catch Carp and Tench

And a margin swim tight into the reeds in the bay to my right

I also plumbed up a swim by the culvert just in case it was hard going

Well that was it I was all set up and ready for the off the sun was shining I had a decent looking peg that I had fished before and caught well from it was only a short walk from the car park and I was set up with time to walk along to the cafe for a cold drink what could possibly go wrong ?
As soon as the all in was sounded I found out what could go wrong there are no fish in Middle lake any more!
I shipped out a pot of pellets to the 8m line and a bit of corn and hemp into the margin swim and a few pellets and hemp under the tree
Usually when you put a pot of pellets in middle lake within a few min's the swim is fizzing and its not long before you are attached to a flying skimmer that thinks its a Trout but I had no fizzing in fact no signs of any fish and even worse no movement on the float
I tried pellet ,paste ,corn and meat and had no joy on any of them after almost an hour I caught a small Roach well I say caught it I think the pellet hit it on the head as it dropped down and in a semi conscious state it threw it's self on the hook then on the next put in the other fish that lives in that corner of the lake feeling lonely snuffled my pellet in a bid to stay with it's mate and had 2 fish in the net 1 little Roach and a small mirror Carp
And that was it I spent the next 4 hours trying everything everywhere to get a bite but all in vain
At last the hooter sounded and it was over
The day wasn't totally wasted as I did manage to catch a bit of sun but unfortunately I couldn't weigh that in
When the scales arrived the 2 fish weighed 14oz and for a while I was leading the section as the guy on peg 14 had only weighed 6oz then the guy on peg 16 stormed into the lead with 2lb odd and peg 17 took the section with 16lb most of which was 1 fish in fact the top weight on middle lake was only 18lb and when you consider Big lake was won with 90lb and small lake with 80lb makes you think something bad has happened to Middle lake
Once the gear was away and I got back to the cafe reports started coming in and it looked like Team Maggotdrowning had retained last position so at least Dave would be proud of us
Peter almost made a slip up by landing a 17lb Carp on big lake and was looking like taking the section with 24lb odd but luckily for him the next peg saved his embarrassment by weighing in 29lb and taking the section
But at least even though the fishing wasn't too good we did have a good laugh
but hopefully next year the match will be moved some where with a few more fish


Official Team Result

Angling Forums 30 Pts
Total Fishing 28 Pts
Talk Angling 23 Pts
Maggot Drowners 19 Pts