During the week I received a message from Kev Boltz, he had been doing some clearing up and came across an old angling newspaper from 1993, he wondered why he had it and so had a flick through and found out it covered a famous win for our Bristol team at the time, more of that in a mo. Kev kindly dropped the paper off outside my door so I could take a look and make some use of it for rekindling some memories. The paper was called Angling West, and I must confess I really don't remember seeing it in my youth, it was published by Grenville Jones, and the regular contributors were Colin Scull, Dave Tait and Ted Tuckerman. Looking through this edition it covers all aspects of fishing over a wide area as shown in the picture I have taken, notice it says distributed via 130 tackle shops. Shops that were advertising in this issue were; Veals, Bacons, Twerton Tackle, Clevedon Angling Supplies, Wests Tackle, The Angling Centre (St Austell), Batemans, D&J Sports, TK Tackle, Cotswold Angling, Mevagissey Shark & Angling Centre. I am sure some of you will remember these fondly, how many are still open I don't know but if any are I would be pleased if you could comment. Or if it was your regular shop back in the day please share.
Of course there were many local leagues back in the early 90's, and this issue covers quite a few, so here are a few pictures with some names from the past, and some still casting a line. Perhaps it may spark a memory or two for some of you.
A Very young looking Derek Jarman in this one, a very good angler to this day, and the results of the famous ACL league which was the Bath anglers league to be in.
Next photo shows two matches I have competed in. Firstly the Veals individual Classic League, fished on a Wednesday I struggled to get time off to commit to the league, but did get into it at least one or two years and managed to win one of the matches and frame in the overall league. However, in this year I didn't fish,but this particular round Clive Rayner was pegged up at Rotork and soon realised he had most of the bream in the river in his peg. He went on to win the match with a new 5 hour record for the stretch of 155lb 2oz. Godfrey Hargreaves was on the next peg to Clive, and the weights went downhill after them. It was quite some years before the record was broken.
The SWWL was my old stomping ground of course, and so I have this actual match recorded in my 1993 diary. The weights here look low for an Autumn match, and it was because the river was in flood. As far as I know all of the anglers in the top 6 are now just on commercials or don't fish anymore. My team were 3rd and as a result we got within 2 points of Bathampton. I only had 6 eels for 14oz down at the Chequers stretch, all caught on lobworm for 6 1/2 points.
More coverage of a local winter league I took part in, the Commercial House, where I fished for Bendix. My team romped the match at Swineford to Crane, with Ian Spriggs getting in the frame. I was on a long walk peg 49, probably end of Cornfield, and had 4lb 10oz for 10 points out of 14 all on the feeder.
The next round was at Laycock, and would have been the Abbey fields and Queens fields. Once again my team smashed it on the day, and captain Andy Floyd won the match and I was last in the main money coming 6th overall. I drew a noted chub peg that was easily identified as it had a rope hanging from a tree where sometimes kids swung from. On the day luckily no kids appeared, but unfortunately the rope was trailing in the river and I could not fish past it to where I really needed to. I fished a stick float in close for dace and gudgeon, then switch to waggler fished as close to the rope as I could get. I had 5 small chub on this which made up the weight to 8lb 4oz. Viv Bees weight of 12lb 13oz included a 10lb 2oz barbel which he had on the stick float with a 20 to 2lb bottom.
Some more winter leagues with good anglers and good teams, look out for Mike Stone, Tim Rowe, Rob Randall, Glenn Bailey, Kev Boltz, Sean Glover and many more! Oh and Darren Shipp, I wonder if that was actually Des Shipp?
Onto the main reason Kevin kept this paper, the NFA South West & South Wales Regional Championship fished on the Gloucester Canal Saturday 4th September 1993. This match attracted a record turnout of 23 teams of 12 anglers! I've done the math for you, it was 276 anglers, wow. I was fishing for my team which were known as Team Bristol Amalgamation. I don't think we would have considered ourselves as one of the top teams for this match with so many locals fishing, and at the time Avon Bait were the best side in the South West and they were winning all over the country. In fact Avon Bait were nailed on favourites with the Bookie in attendance, the famous Bill Knott Jnr. Never the less it was a big match and my team would fish every team match it could at the time. I do not remember the name of the area I drew, but it was peg 134, but straight away I had a little bit of luck. I had fished this area recently and what I noticed last time was that groundbait seemed to be a real waste of time here, and loose feeding was better. I therefore was going down a loose feed only approach, but still knocked up a little gbait just in case it was needed later. I fished the pole at 11m and 12.5m loose feeding maggots and hemp. A 1.25g rig set 1 foot overdepth worked an absolute treat on the day without much tow. At the start everyone chucked in their gbait bar me, but I was confident of my approach. I ended up catching 2 skimmers, 5 roach and 5 eels for 3lb 10oz, that was worth a decent 18 points out of 23. To give you some idea of how well my approach worked, the angler one side of me had 1 roach, and the other side he blanked. It really seemed the fish stayed away from the gbait.
As it turned out the team had done well in nearly all sections, and we totted up we had nearly 200 points but it was too close to call. Then Bill Knott walked up to us with a big smile before the results, he didn't say anything about the result, but said "You've made my day". Finally as the results were read out in reverse order it turned out we had won the match with 200 points, with Glevum AC 2nd with 196, and Avon Bait 3rd 194. Wow, this was a truly amazing result for us and we were ready to celebrate! Bill Knott came back into the bar to see us, after having paid out the lucky people in the frame. Bill said "You lot have saved me a fortune today, Avon Bait put a huge wedge on winning and thank f... you boys won it! Now what would you like to drink, help yourself." Bill paid for the beer, all of it, I will never forget that day as it was just an unexpected win and fabulous day, with free beer the icing on the cake lol!
The picture of the winning team below, and the names from left to right.. Top row.. Rod Hill (RIP), Mike Nicholls, Pete Sivell, Kev Boltz, Paul Lumbard, Glenn Bailey, Ian Spriggs. Bottom row.. Me, Martyn Woodington, Mark Jefferies, Andy Floyd and Bob Sheppard. I am pleased to say I am still fishing (and drinking lol) with many of these guys, but I remain friends with all of them and would always be happy to bump into them. Great blokes, and a great time for fishing. We will be able to get back out there again guys, but for now lift your spirits with your memories of good times.
Thank you very much Kev for sharing this paper with me, it was a real pick me up.
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