2002

 Another week of lockdown passes by and hopefully that means another week nearer to some loosening of lockdown. My parents have now had their vaccination and it looks like there is only another 12 million in the queue before it is my turn. No car now, and no van as yet, lockdown and the weather conspire to keep me at home other than going for a walk for an hour when I can. With no fishing I am keeping myself busy in my spare time, and one thing I have been doing is watching whisky reviews on you tube. I  had a bottle of single malt given to me at Christmas, it is called Deanston, turns out the reviewer I follow called this his single malt of the year back in Jan 2020, happy days I will have to give it a try next weekend. Another thing that has caught my attention is the "South West river match anglers group" on Facebook, set up by Craig Fletcher. With no fishing matches happening the page has not been doing anything, so Craig suggested anglers write up stories of their past matches, great days, bad days, funny times.. Craig asked if I would contribute and I was happy to help and get the ball rolling, and I must say there have been some brilliant and hilarious stories and comments on it, take a look yourself and contribute if you can.

Just remembered, this time last year I was lapping up the sunshine and rum in Barbados, maybe get back there one day....

Back in 2002 in June I pleasure fished at Bullocks Farm, think it was the only time I ever did, I fished on South Pool for not a lot, then turned my box around and fished in a small pond, something like Camilla Bay, and had 20 carp to 5lb on cat meat. I was back at Bullocks for a small open match run by Mr Rixon on the carp lake. I think this was the day when the water had a very brown colour on the top (algae) and when I cupped bait in the colour would break up for a bit. It was a slow day, and I only had 5 carp, all were caught tight to the far bank on cat meat. 22lb 14oz was enough to win my section.

June 16th, you may expect that I would have been on the river on the opening day of the season, but no I was on a lake. I had got up early and drove to Earlswood Lakes to have a practice on "Engine Lake" for an upcoming match I had qualified for, the Sensas PRO - AM final. I'm not sure how long this competition went on for, but basically every month a "panel" would pick one open match angler, and one club match angler from the Anglers Mail reports to go into this final. To be picked you must have used and had it reported in the write up that you used a Sensas product in your win. I was picked for winning the ATWL semi-final, and was well chuffed to be picked as a "PRO". Going up for the practice was important, as I what I found out was that it was method feeder fishing, something I hadn't hardly done. It was good to practice, I realised I needed stronger mainline, and also one of my quiver tips snapped, but I could lots of carp up to 6lb and was feeling happy about things.

I had another chance to practice fishing a method feeder a few days later. I was invited by a customer to a golf / fishing day down near Dorking way, the lake being in the middle of the golf course. The lake was no longer fished due to Health and Safety issues, so the organiser must have been good friends with someone to let us fish it. I put a brolly up as I had a green about 30 metres behind me and I found a couple of golf balls as I was clearing the bankside vegetation, yikes! Armed with better tackle I used this as a practice and the new gear was well tested, as I landed three carp, with the biggest being 18lb which was my biggest ever fish at the time, I also had 4 bream. Two golf balls came close, one in the water and one overhead, funny thing though both balls were hit by the same golfer lol.

The PRO AM final was fished on Tuesday 25th June, it was pegged further down the lake from where I had fished. There was a strong line up of anglers, I remember all the Ringer family were there, but it might only have been Phil fishing, also Darren Cox. Each PRO had to draw a partner out of the hat, as the money being paid out was to the top three pairs. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the guy I drew but he was from down South and we knew each other though hadn't seen each other for a while. I walked to my peg, and got to my platform which was about 8 feet higher than the lake today, you had to have your gear handed down to you off the platform and then walk to the waters edge. I waded out a little but not far as the organisers had asked us to not go out too far. I set up the method, and also a pole float, but I had no clue about fishing the pole on hard pellet for carp and the rig was all wrong, and when I only found 2 feet of water I binned it off. I had a nice steady start to the match casting to the horizon and had 8 carp in the first two hours, the many runners were telling me I was either first or second. The fish then drifted out of my peg and off to the lad to my left on the end peg. I had another 2 carp and couple of bream but was gutted that I hadn't carried on catching. My mistake, I found out after, was that I should have started a new line closer, or fed a line closer with pellets and chucked the method over that. My lack of carp fishing knowledge was evident, but I learnt a lot. However, my good start had got me 48lb, and that added to my partners weight got is in to third place and we pocketed £150 each. I am pretty sure Phil Ringer won it, his club partner was coached by Geoff Ringer on the day so they were really well set. Still it was nice to be part of the event, meet some top anglers and get in the prizes.

I could go on and write about the practice on the River Nene for the ATWL final, but I had a disaster from start to finish. I caught 1lb on one practice, ounces on the next, only catching on bloodworm which I was fishing (looking back) all wrong. Come the final I was on the North Bank and had my weight of 2lb 12oz, but this was only good enough to beat two people, and the further you went to my right the better it got with bags up to 16lb of big roach on bloodworm. Proving that most of my team also had little clue how to fish the bait we came last but one on the day. Still you live and learn.

Enough ramblings for this week, stay safe and keep warm.