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!