Angling Trust Winter League Final

It has been quite a few years since I have been in this final which is fished on the Fenland Drains and Decoy Lakes. My preparation was mainly done a couple of weeks ago, so no mad rush in the lead up. The final had 28 teams of 10 competing, with 5 anglers on the drains and 5 on the lakes. My Thatchers Preston Innovations team was:-

Drains - Andy Ottaway, Lee Trivitt, James Carty, Ian Paulley, Mike Marsden.

Lakes - John Harvey, Rob Jones, Luke sorokin, Paul Isaacs, Tim Ford

I was going to travel up with Paul Isaacs in his large van, but the day before Paul’s van had a problem and so I had to drive which was no problem. We drove up Friday afternoon and got to our pub / hotel just after 6pm, we met up with the rest of the team during the evening as they arrived. A few beers, a Chinese and a great night with the lads, all we needed now was a decent set of pegs.

Saturday morning and the cheapest breakfast of £6 for cereal, drinks, toast and full English! Andy Ottaway had left early to draw and as Paul and I drove to Decoy Lakes we found out are pegs, I was on Beastie 15, and Paul Elm 12. Driving Paul to Elm lake I walked with him to his peg (Paul had not fished Decy before), it was the end bank of a rectangular strip lake, and I told him it was a great peg. I told him that he would catch dobbing bread and would be ok. Off to my lake and found that I was on a mini island (they called it a spit) where two of us were facing into the main lake and two were facing the other way into a bowl. Carp were boshing around and the four of us were a little excited about our prospects. 

I had a nice island to fish to and an aerator and carp were topping all around the island. My neighbour on peg 15 was a young lad called Will Marchant, he said it was the first time he had seen a fish top in three matches at Decoy. I had a straight lead for popped up bread and a maggot feeder for the island. I had 2 pole lines at 14m one for pellet and corn, one for groundbait and maggots. I had 4x16 and 4x14 floats, and 16 GPM to 0.13 and 16 SFL to 0.11. The same rigs would do for 6m.  Now, the sad thing was that I had a lovely left hand margin with reeds where dobbing bread etc looked ideal… but I couldn’t fish it. Fishery rules are you can only fish up to the leg of the next platform, and peg 14 was between me and the reeds. See my picture showing this, arrow where I wanted to fish, but cross where I could not fish past which was 5 metres away. The lad on 13 Dan Bennett said it was the rule too, but thought it was unfair.

Dan was just around the corner of those reeds and it was a fancied peg apparently. See the picture of him behind me on the end of the spit.

The match began at 11:00 and I started on the lead and bread casting short of the aerator to start. A ten minute cast and no indication, so I cast a few metres further. Another 10 minutes and no indication so I was now already going close to the island. By this stage an odd early carp had been caught around the lake, Dan had a couple on bread, but Will and I were still waiting for a liner.

On the hour I had a tiny knock, then Will landed a 4lb F1. Ten minutes later I shipped the pole out with maggot and caught a little roach to save the blank. Back on the lead and needed a trick, so tried to ring Paul but he didn’t answer, as I put my phone down I looked back and my rod was bent in half, trick worked 🤣.  After a worrying time as this fish tried to get under the aerator it soon came in close and I was happy to land a 7lb carp. No more signs, so I went onto the pole but nothing on corn and just another roach on maggot.

I went onto the maggot feeder for an hour, didn’t get any carp but had two skimmers, a few roach and a Gudgeon. I didn’t feel this was right although John Harvey had said it would work, but the roach were feeding. Back on the bread and after a few chucks had a F1 and then a skimmer. I stayed on this longer than I wanted too as the sun was in my eyes and with the wind I couldn’t see my pole floats, in fact I couldn’t even see my tip at one stage and had to reposition it. 

I knew I was doing ok against the guys around me except Dan who was bagging on F1’s fishing to his right on the end of the spit. But I could see others on the lake were doing better. My 6m swim was full of roach despite feeding 2 pints of maggots I took a few of them as I could see the float here, but knew I needed carp so had to get on the lead as the corn line on the pole never gave me a bite all match sadly. No signs for me and with Will having a couple of F1 and skimmer on the pole (and now I could see it) I went back on my gbait and maggot line. I quickly had an F1, and knew I was ahead of Will but with about 30 minutes to go he hooked a carp on the pole. Eventually he netted a 10lb carp hooked in the tail and I congratulated him on landing it. I finally hooked another fish on the pole and as I shipped back the all out was called, a last minute skimmer was nice.

The guy off to my left on the other bank had seen about 25 carp top in his peg yet didn’t get any, he would end last in the section with 3 kilo, and the lad next to him with 7 kilo last but one. Behind me, peg 10 George Webb had 5 F1 for 8 kilo 775g, then Dan smashed the lake with 51 kilo of F1 on maggots. I weighed 8 kilo 450g and Will had 10 kilo 100g.  After this the weights just got better. Unfortunately take away Dan and the bottom 5 of my section came from my area of the lake. Clearly the topping carp were not feeding, maybe cleaning off leaches? But we were all left scratching our heads.

My fish today. Disappointed to only beat 2 people, but realistically beating 4 was the best I could have done. I never missed a bite on the tip and never lost a fish.

Paul had a great result coming second on his lake with nearly 30 kilos, all caught on bread in the first 90 minutes. 

Rob had a nice peg and was third with 30 kilos but John and Luke were in bad areas and only beat a few. On the drains our star was Andy who won his section with 193 fish for 5 kilo. Mike was 6th, but unfortunately James, Lee and Ian were all low down. That meant we ended in 17th place out of 28 teams, too many poor pegs but that’s winter for you. Barnsley Blacks won with local team Tackle and Bates runners up, well done to them very consistent performances.

We stopped for a bite to eat on the way home, Paul certainly had an appetite ordering two meals 🙈🤣. 

Well a bad result but I enjoyed spending time with the lads, meeting new anglers and a few others I had not seen for some time. Next got to try to get on the river before the end of the season!

Pleasure Fishing the Bristol Avon

The last couple of weeks have seen me working away, with last week me being in Holland. Weather was the same cold, damp and no sun. I hadn’t thought about fishing and so forgot to order any casters. There was a match at Newbridge which I forgot about and with no casters I was not going to compete. I hatched a plan to fish the lower Avon somewhere.

I was looking forward to getting back on the bank, and after watching the Gas win on Saturday was buzzing. I got wrapped up and loaded the van, then got a couple of pints of maggots from Premier Angling. Decided to stay here and fish the Crane, and pushed my trolley to the peg just over the cattle grid. This peg has a large Willow tree opposite that’s now badly damaged I assume from floods and wind, and so I set up a block end feeder for this. Also set up a 13BB crow quill for fishing about a third out.

I had about an hour on the feeder with no bites and then got snagged up and lost everything. I didn’t think it was worth setting up again so grabbed the float rod. Probably spent 45 minutes on this and was thinking this was not going to happen when a long way down the peg I hooked a chub. I was on 0.12 and pulled as hard as possible but it snagged me up. Onto 0.13 powerline, and hooked another chub in the same spot and this one also snagged me up. I then hooked one closer to me and got it out no problem, about 3lb. Nice to get one out!

I hooked what I think was a fouler as it was a dead weight and then it pinged off, this mead to a quiet spell. I then had a visit from my former school teacher and former match angler Roger Stone. Older anglers will remember Roger for sure, he told me he had not fished for 20 years and is himself 80 years old. Sad to say as we chatted and he asked me about certain anglers and I had to tell him many had passed away. Sadly I never had a bite whilst we chatted, but no sooner had he walked out of sight and I hooked another chub by the boat, and it was soon in the snag and gone. I tried fishing further out but I couldn’t get a bite there, the float had to be by the boat.

There’s lot of underwater weed and reeds on this peg, and to get the float to run down the side of the boat I had to cast further out and down and then slow it up to come in below the snags. I was going to keep trying and hope that a chub would swim out into the river, but I put a 0.15 hook length on now. That didn’t help much and I lost another 2 chub quite quickly one I got a lot further up to me but it still snagged me. They had all felt like decent size fish, so when I hooked the next one and it didn’t pull so hard I was hoping I could get it out. Success and a 2lb fish landed.

After a bit of a wait I hooked another chub, this one felt heavy and dead handy it swam out into the middle of the river. After a few nervous moments I got it in the net. It was my best one and probably 5lb. That was the last fish as a while later I snagged bottom and lost everything, an original topper float drifted off down river.

That was plenty of fun and not being a match I wasn’t worried about losing the chub. It would need a pole and Strong elastic approach sat next to the boat I think to keep the chub away from the snags.

Nice to hear the bream showed at Newbridge, with Jerry Pocock winning the match with 70lb. Think there were a few 50lb and plenty of back up weights. Shaun Townsend had 26lb of chub by the pumphouse to only beat one angler in his section. Dean Harvey had a bream of 8lb 14oz, huge!

One thing about today was despite the bitter cold I stayed warm, the Preston Celsius fleece is brilliant, and with my Sonubaits bobble hat I was toasty! Time to finish the prep now for the ATWL final next week, carp bingo for me need a draw 🙏🙏🙏

Where did January go?

 Just posting a quick update as I have not been fishing since my match at Windmill. I was going to fish a match on the river but Rovers match was put on a Sunday and I watched that and glad I did as I saw a rare win!

Quite honestly I can’t motivate myself to go out when I see how tough places are fishing, so I’ve been doing some family time. However. I’ve been doing a bit of prep, as I’m fishing the Angling Trust Winter League Final with Thatchers. Ten anglers are in the team, 5 fish on the Fenland Drains and 5 fish at Decoy Lakes. I’m in the Decoy team so have been tying rigs, hooks etc. looking at recent matches at the venue it is carp bingo, so the drawbag is going to play a huge part. Mind you the normally prolific drains are very poor in places, with one recent open match being abandoned after 4 hours with nobody having a bite. 

If the cold weather stays, and the fish don’t come into the drains then Lady Luck will play a huge part in this final which takes place Saturday 22nd February.