Welcome to my first blog post of 2021. New Year but nothing to write home about just yet is it. Covid cases are at a level not seen before, and for a few days it looked like there would be no fishing allowed during this latest lockdown. I have been involved with a number of debates / discussions over "to fish or not to fish", and it has been noticeable that many commercial fisheries have decided to stay closed at the moment. These owners each have their own reasons I am sure, and most importantly they have their own safety to consider, I for one have no issue if they choose to shut down. The recent cold and icy weather hasn't done anything to motivate me to go out and fish, instead I have gone for walks with my family, pulled up the last of my winter vegetables and prepared the ground for spring time planting. If I do get out fishing in the lockdown it will probably just be a simple trip to the river at Swineford, Crane or maybe Conham, but we will see.
I am going to go back to my diary again now, and I was writing about February 2002 last time, but just before I do I want to share a few photos that came my way from a 1966 Frys company magazine. It talks about an inter departmental fishing match which was won by Colin Goulding with 6lb 11oz. Bob Warren is also mentioned, but he and Colin are the only two names I personally remember, perhaps some of the more old readers of this blog may recall a few more names? There is also a couple of other match results mentioned.
Back in 2002 my last match of February was at Plantations, on the carp lake. It was a mid week match ran by Tony Rixon. On the journey to the venue the weather was atrocious gale force wind, hail, sleet and snow, but I got there as did plenty of others. I drew at the far end bank of the lake, and the wind was not at all bad where I drew and I could fish a pole at 11 metres fine. I thought the fishing would be rubbish so just went down a maggot approach, using a 4x16 float with 0.12 to 18 for double maggot. By feeding just 15 maggots every time I shipped out I was soon into small carp (up to 3lb) and was catching steady and better than those around me. After about 3 hours I was probably winning the match easily, but then the wind just dropped and I lost all the ripple on the water, and with that the fish just went and I struggled to catch anything after this. I weighed in 58lb and came 3rd in the match, the winner I believe was Dave Lewis, he was at the opposite end to me and he caught steady all day, he fished corn and had some bigger fish, I'm pretty sure Tony Rixon was second.
On Sunday 3rd March my Avon Angling team went up to the K&A canal at Marlborough for a practice for the ATWL semi final. We had engaged the help of Kev Rowles and he was going to be invaluable to us as we really didn't have much clue of the approach. Kev told us to fish bread punch at about 5m and then to feed groundbait further over, you were looking to catch roach mainly, with of course the chance of odd skimmers or hybrids. Kev had previously taken us to a tough section as he said this would be what a lot of the canal would be like, we watched him for a bit and he showed us what floats to use. On this day we went and fished another part of the canal and, as you do, we all chucked a fiver in made it a little interesting. That said we never had a draw, and Kev Winstone sat on the first peg (well nobody would argue with him) and we all just fell into place after. I remember I had Sean Glover to my left and Shay Gillman to my right. I didn't buy any new pole floats as I had similar floats (wire stemmed, wire tips) from bloodworm fishing in the past. The practice went well for me and I learned loads from Mr Rowles, I ended being top weight with 2lb 14oz so with a few quid in my pocket I went home full of confidence.
The big day came the following Saturday, and Kev Rowles was going to help us on the day, he had walked some of the sections the evening before and told us what peg number had the renowned tench peg in the team draw. Mark Jefferies was the Avon Angling team captain, and he was a tad nervous and asked me to accompany him to the draw. As I watched him he only went and pulled out the set of pegs with the flyer in! Straight away I ran back to tell the rest of the team that one of us was on it! Podge came back looking a little glum (he wasn't on the flyer lol) and then told me I was a jammy "so and so" as I was on the flyer. Yikes, all of a sudden I went from elation to the fear and pressure of expectation. Kev told all of the team what to do on the pegs they had drawn, and then spoke to me last of all, his information was out of this world, and made me feel much better, well there was no brown stuff going down my leg anymore lol.
I got to the peg and the wind was really an issue today, it was forecast to get up to 70mph, and there were times when I thought a tree opposite was going to blow over. I put my brolly up, staked down, and tried to secure everything in place under the brolly and close to hand. A mini disaster occurred when a severe gust of wind blew my bait boxes off the bait tray and onto the bank. I was scrabbling around trying to grab casters, maggots and pinkies of the grass. Whilst setting up two tench had rolled in front of a tree right opposite me, but Kev had said not to fish here and to go to the right by some reeds. There was though a big problem, the canal was towing like a river, and my light rigs were simply not going to be heavy enough to slow or hold a bait in place, and I had nothing heavier. I was praying that the tow was going to slow up at some stage. I plumbed my 5m line and then ran the rig through, I pulled the float up and had a snag, it came up, a lot of brambles and the rig broke. I replumbed up at 6m and it was clear here. I think you can tell I was having a very tricky pre match time!
Onto the match and I fed my ball of liquidized at 6m and didn't feed anything over by the reeds as I thought the bait would wash into the reeds where I couldn't actually put a rig. The rig was flying through on the bread at 6m, but putting the rig in different ways I finally managed to get a bite after a painful 30 minutes. I had 4 roach and 2 hybrids, one of which was 12oz on the bread line. I had the Angling Press cameras flashing as I landed the 12oz hybrid (the press were here with the expectation of me doing well, one of the reporters was my previous Thatchers team mate Brian Gay who worked for the Anglers Mail). Having those fish made me feel a little better, and after an hour the canal was slowing and I thought I could now feed my tench spot with a little worm and caster. Just before I did the angler to my right had a tench himself and had 2 more quickly after, so I was playing catch up. However, my patience was rewarded and as the canal continued to slow down my 4x12 float fished next to the reeds in a slight cutback began to go under, the tench were there. I caught odd fish on and off and topped up with little bits of worm and caster. I had 7 tench and 4 perch from across and was pleased I had manage to battle the elements and put some fish in the net. The guy to my right had no more tench after his quick three.
My fish weighed 17lb 14 1/2oz and when I got back to the results I found out this was just enough to take the individual win, with team mate Sean Glover having just 7oz less than me and he had done brilliant. The icing on the cake though was that my team got announced in 3rd place and we had made the final! For a bunch of mainly river anglers this was a big result, but the canal had warmed up and that meant our positive approach in good areas was the right one. Kev was a bit emotional at our success, and I can tell you that there is absolutely no way our team would have qualified without his help, and no way I would have won off that flyer either. I still owe Kev more beer for my biggest ever pay day.
Some photos below of press cuttings I kept.
That was a good day to write about and reflect on, doesn't seem like it was that long ago but time flies by so fast it seems. I think at the time I was the only person who had ever won an ATWL semi final and final, and I always thought that was one of my best achievements when those were large matches with top anglers fishing, but you need your slice of luck.
I intend to keep my blog going every week through lockdown, and whether you chose to go fishing or not please stay safe and look after yourself.
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