Witherington Farm

Today its the Witherington Farm FishOmania qualifier which I was lucky enough to get a ticket for

I came down to Witherington Farm on Easter Monday to have a practise for this match and I fished the Inner Snake peg 89



I had a great days fishing and in the 5 hours between 11am and 4pm I had over 150lb my conclusion from the practise was that it was hard to catch from the far side with only small Carp and Gold fish and the odd Tench showing there were plenty of skimmers down the middle on pellet but fishing tight to the nearside bank on just the top 4 produced decent Carp 1 a chuck on corn

But all the talk on the fishing sites was that Witherington wasn't used to having so many people on the banks with nearly all the pegs on the site in use it was going to be a real gruller and added to that the temperature was expected to soar for the match so many were writing the match off before it started but I still had high hopes

So following my practise session I was looking forward to the match today and hoping to draw on the snake rather than 1 of the lakes so I was more than pleased when I opened my ticket and saw I had draw peg 81 on the inner snake
On the map it shows 81 as being on the bridge and seeing that I got even more excited and rushed off to get my gear out of the car



Unfortunately the map is wrong and 82 and 83 are either side of the bridge and although 82 was left out in the pegging the bridge could only be fished from 83





But still with an empty peg next to me that should give me and excellent inside line and I should be bagging up on Carp

I set up 4 rigs my main hope was the margin swim to my left and I decided to fish tight in to the vacant peg and fish corn on a B911 size 14 direct to 0.14mm Silstar line




Next line was down the middle at about 7m and here I set up a rig to fish pellet on the deck on a B911 size 16 to 0.14mm main line with a 0.12 hook length




Next line was the margin on the far bank at 13m and for that I set up the same rig as for the near bank

And the last rig was a maggot rig to fish at 6m on a B911 18 to 0.12mm Silstar

There's not much room between the 2 snakes so you have to break down twice so that your pole doesn't over hang the margin of the outer snake




At 11am the hooter sounded to start the match and I cupped 2 small balls of green swim stim laced with 4mm sinking pellets out in front at 7m a cup of corn and hemp in the margin swim to my left and the same in the margin swim on the far bank

Then I started on the pellet line with a 6mm soft hooker on the hook first put in and the float bobbled a few times then slowly slid under and I had an 8oz skimmer in the net next put in same result then I had to wait about 20 Min's for the next fish which was again a skimmer of the same stamp

I had seen a few Carp caught further round the inner snake and could hear Carp splashing about from behind me on the outer snake so as Fisho is winner takes all messing about with slivers wasn't going to do me any good and it didn't look like any better fish were going to move in on my feed so I decided to give the margin swim a go
I spent the next hour fishing the margin to my left with no joy not even an indication so I tried the far bank margin and after about an hour I managed to catch a small Carp of about 1lb

I spent the next hour back on the pellet line where I managed to catch another 4 skimmers all around 8oz but still no better fish

A quick look on the maggot line produce nothing so I spent the last 30 Min's fishing the margin swim hoping the Carp would move on to my feed but no joy the hooter went and that was another Fisho qualifier over for me

A lot of people packed up early and tipped their fish back and as I was packing up people round both the inner and outer snakes were tipping back and leaving so as the guy on 83 had had about 12 Carp from under the bridge and the 2 guys to my right had both had a few decent Carp each I decided not to hang about and tipped my fish back looking at them I would guess I had about 4 1/2lb

I loaded the car up and didn't bother waiting for the result as most of the people were coming back moaning about how hard it had been so I just headed home hoping to beat the traffic




Witherington farm is certainly a nice place to fish and after the cracking day I had last Monday I was expecting a lot more but I suppose the amount of anglers and the weather just killed the place but its certainly worth a visit The match was won with I think 109lb from the peg on the outer snake behind the guy on 83 and apparently he caught most of his fish in the last hour

Still I've got a ticket for Monk Lakes so 1 chance left this year