Hundreds raised for charity in Northern fishing event
A fishing match held at a venue in Cheshire has been deemed a complete success by organisers, with hundreds of pounds raised for a cancer charity.
Danny hopes to turn the match into a yearly event for Northern anglers
The match held at Meadow View Fisheries in Lymm, was hosted by Danny Fenson, who hopes to turn it into a yearly event for Northern anglers.
“In the end we had 19 anglers attend the event. This ranged from experienced match anglers to people that have never fished a match before,” says Danny.
“We have now raised over £700 for a pancreatic cancer charity. The money raised will help fight this awful disease."
Danny revealed why the charity is so close to his heart…
“I lost my dad in early February this year to the disease and as you can imagine it hit our family quite hard.
“So I decided to arrange a charity fishing match in his honour. We used to go fishing together when I was younger. last year I took fishing back up again and wanted to take him one last time but it was too late.”
You can still donate to Danny’s cause here: https://fundraise.pancreaticcancer.org.uk/fundraisers/danielfenson.
One barbel enough for 3k win
One BITE and one fish were enough to seal the Evesham Angling Festival title for Andy Richings, as the Gloucestershire man left it late to take the £3,000 top prize with a big Warks Avon barbel that took him from zero to hero!
Andy Richings with the Evesham trophy
The match was the second of three that make up the angling extravaganza on the river at Evesham and, after drawing his peg, Lobby’s Tackle man Andy decided on a big-fish approach that was all or nothing.
Pegged on 15, a swim that had blanked the day before, Andy was at least in a good area for catching a barbel and, with the river still coloured from rain, there was always a chance. With 15 minutes of the match remaining though, he was nowhere, but then one bite and a 10lb 4oz barbel later he was being installed as favourite to win! Added to a few perch, his weight of 10-6-4 beat Dan Abbott’s 8-0-0 from peg 2.
“I had Iain Jennings, the winner of the Wychavon the day before, next to me, and he reckoned my peg was a consistent one for barbel,” Andy said. “I had two choices – either fish for 3lb of tiddlers and come nowhere or try for a barbel, go for one bite and maybe win £3,000. It was no contest!”
Casting a cage feeder packed with halibut pellets and groundbait down the middle, he had little success with pellet on the hook. A change to a thumbnail-sized piece of meat did the trick and over went the rod tip with 15 minutes to go. Geared up with strong line and a big hook, the fish was soon landed.
The barbel feeder rig
“As soon as I netted the fish, the crowd behind me said ‘that fish is worth three grand – you’ll win with that’! It was only when the scales worked their way around the river that I knew the crowd was right!”
How Andy Bennett made history...
A rousing comeback in the second half of this year’s Fish O’Mania Final saw Andy Bennett become the first angler to secure back-to-back titles in the competition’s history, earning him that slice of history and the £50,000 winner’s cheque.
Andy Bennett become the first angler to secure back-to-back titles in the competition’s history
Fishing in autumnal conditions on the Island Lake at South Yorkshire’s Hayfield Lakes, Guru/Blake’s Bait man Andy, who qualified for the final automatically as defending champ, seemed out of it at the halfway stage. Then the carp turned up and a run of fish on the bomb helped him to make his move. The Manchester man finished with 40-100 from peg 10, enough to fend off runner-up Luke Sears on next-door peg 9, who took 33-850.
Strong winds made pole and waggler fishing all but impossible and many of the finalists, Andy among them, went down the quivertip and short pole route.
With two and a half hours gone, though, he seemed to be well out of the reckoning, with triple Fish O’ champion Jamie Hughes seemingly in control.
However, the fish vanished from Jamie’s peg and a group of big carp settled in front of Andy and Luke. The fourth hour turned into a golden 60 minutes, propelling last year’s champion into the lead, albeit a slender one of just a few kilos.
With Luke snapping at his heels and Andy’s peg suddenly seeming lifeless, he felt one more big carp would get the job done, and sure enough, with 15 minutes left the tip went around and the fish he desperately needed was in the bag, along with the title! Andy takes up the story...
Hours one and two
“In the opening two hours I caught seven kilos while the leaders were on 20-odd kilos, so I was well behind. Even though it was windy I could fish shallow on the long pole, but it was looking grim, bar a massive change. I needed some fish in front of me.”
Mid-match
“Until halfway through, the peg seemed dead. I managed a carassio on the waggler, but this was my only bite on the float. Luke to my right had been catching, so I began feeding more heavily to try and draw some of his fish towards me. I went from loosefeeding six 8mm pellets to double pouching 15 pellets at a time and finally I began to catch on two red eight-millers.”
A run of fish on the bomb helped him to make his move
Golden spell
“The next 90 minutes were really good, but I still felt I couldn’t catch the leaders up. Then my bank runner Paul Holland told me that a lot of the leaders had stopped catching, and that I was still in with a shout.”
A nervy end
“With an hour to go, I was three kilos ahead of Luke, then the peg died and I couldn’t buy a bite. Luke only needed one big fish to overtake me and he lost two in that final hour, a cause for panic on my part! I needed one more fish to put enough of a cushion between us. With 15 minutes to go, I got it.”
The final reckoning
“Even now, it surprises me that I won, because the peg had no form. It’s not a victory for patience or coolness, it’s more down to chance that the fish stayed where they did. Because my tactics were right, I felt that if I had a number of fish to work with, I was in with a chance, nothing more. To win back-to-back finals is a dream – I guess the next question is, can I make it a hat-trick? Who knows! As champion I won’t have to qualify next year, but at Hayfield any peg is capable of winning.”
“To win back-to-back finals is a dream”
'The match of a lifetime' - Jon Arthur pockets £1000 winnings in blazing heat!
Oppressive heat and searing temperatures without a breath of wind are hardly the best of fishing conditions, yet double UK Champion Jon Arthur made light of the recent heatwave to top round two of this year’s event in style – with a new competition record weight of 477-14-0!
Matrix/Dynamite Baits man Jon landed 62 carp from peg 22 on Yew Lake at Decoy Lakes near Peterborough, ending the day miles clear of runner-up James Collison’s 282-1-0 off next-door peg 19. Richard Drage completed the top three with 263-7-0. Jon’s reward was not only a new record and a section win, but also £1,000 in winnings!
“That was the match of a lifetime,” reflects Jon.
“We all knew that under the right conditions 300lb was a possible winning weight because it is so rare to see 400lb caught at Decoy.
“I thought the weather certainly wasn’t right. It was the hottest I have ever been while fishing, but there were so many carp in front of me, I kind of felt that if enough of them fed, a massive weight was possible.”
At the peg
“I drew peg 22 on Yew Lake and headed there thinking that it would either be a day catching shallow, short or in the edge because they’re the three methods that normally win on the strip lakes at Decoy.
“You’ve got to catch a weight as well, so 200lb was the kind of figure I was aiming for. When I got to my peg there were hundreds of carp on the surface all the way across the lake, so it didn’t take long to work out a strategy!
“I set up three mugging rigs with different lengths of line between the float and pole, as well as a margin rig for late on.”
What a start!
“After 80 minutes, I’d caught 20 carp and the peg was carnage, with fish all over the place. I caught from 5m out to 13m out, but generally between 5m and 8m was the best range using a 6mm banded red pellet or a 7mm Dynamite Baits Washter and a 0.3g dibber fished 15ins deep. I like to fish deeper than normal because I think that when you’re mugging, you catch a lot of fish as the bait falls as opposed to them coming to the splash of it hitting the surface. Hook was a size 16 Matrix MXC4 to a 16-18 Slik elastic.
“What was also important was working out which way to lay the rig in front of fish. I like to cast to them, putting the bait closest to the fish and the float further away, and I also varied how the bait went in. Sometimes a hard slap on the surface worked while, on others, gently underarming the bait so it hit the water with a plop was better.”
“That was the match of a lifetime”
Getting hotter and hotter
“In the second and third hours the temperature picked up even further and it was merciless. I fished in a vest and shorts but was dripping with sweat and sinking litres of water while wiping my head with a mouldy old towel in my carryall that I’d soaked in the lake!
“The stamp of carp seemed to tail off as well, but there were always enough fish in the swim to target, even though I reckoned 90 per cent of them weren’t interested in taking the hookbait. At this point I did begin to feed a bit of bait, 6mm pellets at 6m, and caught a few fish doing this – but it was really only a throwaway line.
“With 90 minutes to go I fed the margins, picking a swim that had the shallowest water I could find. Although carp moved into the edge, I couldn’t catch them so I started to throw in casters by hand around 2m out from the bank and picked off a few carp fishing shallow here.”
The weigh in
“I ended up with 62 carp for no idea what weight! It was only after I saw the lads around me weigh and worked out the number of fish for those weights that I thought my carp must average 8lb apiece. That’d make my weight over 400lb so I must have got my sums wrong.
“That said, 60 carp at 5lb each is 300lb and a lot of my fish were bigger than 5lb! It really was a red-letter day and amazing, given how unbearably hot the weather was.
“It’s nice to have the event’s record back again and I just hope the next round at the Glebe is a mugging day because I seem to do okay on that tactic in the UK Champs – last year I won round two at Hayfield mugging and the year before won a round at Barston doing the same!”
The top three
700lb-plus haul smashes match record!
THE six-hour match record at a top northern fishery has just been obliterated with an incredible 714lb 15oz of carp.
Mosella Quaker-backed bagger James Roper was fishing peg 38 on Angel of the North Fishery’s Bowes Lake when he netted fish to 14lb on a mixture of margin and shallow tactics to beat the 642lb best.
“On the day my peg looked perfect as it was red hot and the wind was blowing in,” he told us.
“In the first hour alone I had 100lb down the edge on 6mm expanders over micros, then for the rest of the match I caught steadily on 8mm hard pellets fished shallow at 10m range.
“The peg was solid, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t exhausted – I even had cramp in my forearms three times!”
Using a strong pole and a size 20 elastic, James landed a carp every two minutes and ended the contest with 17 keepnets in the water – half of which he stored in the next peg due to a lack of room!
Just part of James Roper’s phenomenal haul of carp
Bob's trademark white cap became a beacon to attract spectators - Keith Arthur
Bob Nudd MBE came to match fishing quite late in life, but it didn’t take him long to reach the very top.
The quietly-spoken man from deepest Essex was the first Southerner to be picked by Dick Clegg for England’s World Championship squad. I’ll never forget sitting next to Dick on the way back from the Killyhevlin section of Lough Erne on the ill-fated 1985 Sealink Classic, telling him he’d picked the wrong man for the 1984 Championships and how Steve Gardener or Dave Vincent would have been better bets. This was despite the fact that in 1983 Bob was part of an Essex County team that won the World Club Championship in Italy – and that sort of thing doesn’t happen often. Shows what I know!
Bob soon became an integral member of a great squad and in 1990 won the first of four World Championship individual gold medals. His trademark white cap became a beacon to attract spectators and there was always a big gallery behind his zone.
The highlight of his England career was winning double gold, team and individual, at Nottingham’s Holme Pierrepont rowing course in 1994. Although Bob’s forte is pole fishing, I was there to witness his skills with a long-range slider float.
The highlight of his England career was winning double gold, team and individual, at Nottingham’s Holme Pierrepont rowing course in 1994.
I was also there for Bob’s final individual win in 1999 on a roasting-hot canal in Toledo, Spain. The wait for the final Spanish angler to weigh in on Bob’s section was one of the tensest moments in angling I’ve ever known.
Bob still competes at the highest open match level, preferring the natural waters of the Fens near his home, and is now back in the England fold at ‘veteran’ (a term he despises! level, so his hoard of gold may not yet be complete.
Always happy to talk to the crowds, and free with his advice and knowledge, Bob is a legend, and his impact on the sport will endure for many years to come.
His England team mates applaud Bob’s victory.
For more fishing history, pick up Angling Times magazine every Tuesday and turn to Arthur’s Archive
Fish O'Mania final to be fished behind closed doors - will we see bumper weights?
SPECTATORS will not be allowed to be present at this year’s Fish O’Mania final following the Government’s decision to further limit crowd attendances at live sporting events.
The 2020 Fish O’ Mania final will be behind closed doors
It will be the first time in the competition’s 26-year history that the final will be fished without supporters, although the format for the match will remain unchanged – with 24 anglers still competing for the £50,000 first prize at Hayfield Lakes on Saturday, August 29.
Fish O’Mania NXTGEN (Next Generation) goes ahead as planned and eight young anglers will compete for a £2,500 winner’s cheque.
Losing the crowds is a double-edged sword, says the 2015 and 2017 Fish O’Mania winner, Jamie Hughes.
“I really feel for the new guys who won’t get to experience the amazing atmosphere I did,” he adds.
“The crowds make a huge difference and I’ve found the pressure from supporters encourages you to fish to the best of your ability.
“The lack of noise and activity will improve the fishing, though, so we could see some huge weights.”
There will be no scenes like this a Fish O’ this year!
Billy Lane, the wizard of floatfishing - Keith Arthur
The great Billy Lane never won the National, but he came close. When cash prizes were secondary to silverware, nobody had a trophy cabinet as well stocked as his.
Then in 1963 he became England’s first World Champ and that enhanced his reputation still more. There were no such things as feeders or catapults allowed, and Billy’s floatfishing skills made legering redundant.
Nobody had a trophy cabinet as well stocked as Billy Lane
The Missile – a huge loaded, bodied waggler, around long before the term waggler had been coined – helped anglers to fish the wide, deep, waters of the Fens, but the first of his inventions that I adopted was the Trent Trotter. Billy designed this float for very shallow areas of the river. It was basically an Avon float with the stem chopped off directly below the body. An eye was whipped on and the float was fished bottom only, with a bulk shot locking it in place, one No4 shot set at half-depth below the float and another set at double the depth ABOVE the float.
This was what we now call a back shot, and it dragged bottom, slowing the float down. On some Middle Thames winter roach swims, only 2ft deep, it was particularly deadly.
His seminal work on the subject, the Billy Lane Encyclopaedia of Float Fishing, was published in the 1970s and remains a go-to read.
His tackle shop in Coventry is still a haven for anglers, and the maggot farm he set up produces some of the finest bait in the country. Keeping the Lane tradition of winning big matches going, his grandson Tom famously won the 2015 RiverFest title on the River Wye in conditions that even the great man may have struggled to find a float for. Tom’s 4oz feeder did the trick and enabled a second-day performance that was more than enough to clinch the title.
Billy Lane in his shop
To read more fascinating fishing history, pick up Angling Times every Tuesday and turn to Arthur’s Archive
Match Fishing Is Changing - Reader Letter
“I’m not an avid match angler but I do follow the scene with interest and watch out for the results in Angling Times each week.
“Two things have stood out recently, the first being the increase in attendances at matches on natural waters since lockdown ended.
“Maybe match anglers have outgrown those stock pond commercials and are returning to fishing events that offer a real challenge.
“Okay, some of the catch weights might not be headline-makers but they usually make for close competitions.
There has been an increase in attendances on natural water matches
“The second thing I discovered was that Jamie Hughes keeps getting through to the Fish O’Mania final each year – this time marks his ninth final in a row.
“I don’t know how he does it, but there’s no denying he’s got a serious talent there and I’ll be cheering him on come the day of the final.”
Jamie Hughes just keeps winning. There’s no denying he’s got serious talent.
Letter sent in from Alex Ross, Lancashire
Send us your letters and pics to: atletters@bauermedia.co.uk
Charity calls for anglers help
A MAJOR charity is appealing to the angling community to help generate vital funds through fishing matches after the organisation’s 2020 fundraising events were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Marie Curie, which provides care and support for people with terminal illnesses and their families, has continued its incredible work throughout the crisis but is now in desperate need of your help.
Holly Carey, a Community Fundraiser for the charity, said:
“If you’re a keen angler and thinking of heading back to your local fishery or lake, we’re asking that you and your friends consider indulging your passion whilst raising much-needed funds for our cause through a fishing match or tournament.
“Even the smallest amount will be a huge help in recovering what we have lost and will further aid our hardworking nurses, hospices and Support Line through this tough time.”
Grimsby-based angler Glenn Gollins is already doing his bit and for the last seven years has run an annual fundraising match on his local fishing pond.
He told us:
“Eight years ago I lost my wife and Marie Curie were there for me every step of the way, so I wanted to give something back. Over the years the match has grown in popularity and we raised £2,000 during the most recent one.
“It shows that anglers have a heart and can make a difference when it matters.”
To get involved, email holly at holly.cary@mariecurie.org
Marie Curie provides care and support for people with terminal illnesses and their families
First visit to the venue and a big match win!
There are those who swear that an intimate knowledge of a venue is a must for success, but Lee Kerry showed that’s not always the case by winning the latest Angling Trust RiverFest qualifier on the River Weaver – on his first visit to the North West waterway!
Lee Kerry knows a thing or two about catching bream (Southfield image)
Having booked on at the last minute, Lee weighed in 46-15-12 of bream and skimmers to cruise to victory from Kevin Hall on 25-7-0. Lee was helped by drawing a great peg, but good pegs don’t fish themselves.
“I don’t get the time in summer to fish RiverFest but I saw a few tickets for sale and had heard that the Weaver was fishing well, so fancied a go,” Lee says.
“I drew peg 2 on what’s called the old river, a good swim. It gets pleasure fished a lot, is wide and deep and a known bream area. There was a feeder and a pile of pellets in the peg when I got there, so that told me all I needed to know!”
Picking one line to fish the feeder at 30m, Lee used one as a negative swim with small baits and finely chopped worms through the feeder, the second being more positive with corn, 2mm pellets and rougher chopped worm fed. Kicking off on the negative line, he then moved on to the positive once he felt a few fish were about.
The rig that won
“The opening hour was slow, but I could see some bream rolling so I kept the faith and once I got a bite, things got better and better,” he continues.
“By resting and rotating the swims, I had a great three hours catching around 25 fish before things fizzled out in the last hour. From people walking about, though, it seemed that no-one else was catching that well in the match, but you never know on a river with bream – it’s possible to catch 50lb in an hour!”
Are we using too much bait?
WE’VE all been there. Hours pass without a bite so we pile in the feed to try to elicit a response. The bombardment often fails, though, and we don’t spare a second thought for the bait we’ve just introduced and the after-effects it may have.
Do anglers use too much bait?
Our presumption is that the resident fish will eventually hoover it all up, but the reality on some lakes is far different. If it stays untouched and begins to break down, the decomposing bait can leach potentially harmful chemicals into the water.
Nowhere have the effects of overfeeding been more evident recently than at Cambridgeshire’s Bluebell Lakes complex, where uneaten bait has released high levels of nitrates into the venue’s five gravel pits.
To try to reverse the damaging trend, management have now banned the use of bait boats and reduced the number of swims on each lake by up to 35 per cent.
Bluebell’s staffman Paul Waller tells us:
“There’s been a surge in angling pressure since we reopened and this has meant a lot of pellets and boilies have gone into the water.
“The problem is, with the hot weather prompting the carp to spawn instead of feeding hard, a lot of it has gone uneaten.
“This was becoming a cause for concern so we took water samples.
“The results revealed that all five pits contained high levels of nitrate, which can be dangerous as it feeds algae which, in turn, depletes the oxygen levels in the water.
“The decision to ban bait boats and cut down the number of swims on each lake was tough, but necessary to protect our highly-prized stocks.”
Around spawning or in periods of very hot weather, bait can be left uneaten on the bottom
Double trouble in hot weather
Bluebell’s new rules will last for the rest of the year until the water quality stabilises, although the issue of high nitrate levels is normally more of a problem in the summer months, when excessive feeding paired with hot weather can prove a recipe for disaster.
Top fish biologist Simon Scott says:
“Carp are rather greedy fish and at times they’ll consume a lot of food, but if the water quality is not perfect then their appetite can diminish rapidly.
“If the oxygen level of the water is low due to hot weather, then there is a good chance that the carp might not eat a huge pile of food.
“The problem then occurs when anglers feed too much bait and it’s just left to rot on the bottom, which makes the water quality even worse.”
If oxygen levels are low the carp won’t want a big bed of feed and you are making it harder to catch them
The commercial angle
While there’s growing evidence that overfeeding on low to medium-stock lakes or gravel pits can pose a problem, what’s the situation on commercial venues, which often boast a far higher density of stocks?
The match waters at the Oaks Lakes in North Yorkshire have been producing 500lb-plus bags since fishing resumed, but venue’s owner Tom Kay says that there’s nothing to suggest that the bait thrown in by anglers isn’t getting eaten.
“We’ve had our issues with nitrate in the past, although since we’ve improved our aeration facilities, there hasn’t been a problem,” he tells us.
“I guess the difference between a commercial fishery and a natural one is that there are more fish and less natural food, so there’s a high chance that bait will get mopped up quickly.”
Despite not having any feeding restrictions on site, Tom has rules in place to help to monitor what goes into his lakes.
He adds:
“Anglers can only feed our own low-oil pellets, and all unused bait must be taken home or thrown in the bin after fishing.
“Yes, you can catch 300lb of carp by feeding heavily, but I’ve seen anglers do the same using just a bag of our 4mm feed pellets, so piling it in isn’t always the way.”
There is nothing to suggest that bait thrown in by anglers isn’t eaten at the Oaks
A different mindset
On the match fishing scene, the way you feed can sometimes mean the difference between winning or losing.
Last year’s Fish O’Mania winner Andy Bennett reckons adopting a reserved approach to feeding is always best.
He says:
“Commercials hold loads of fish and problems can develop if you overfeed at the start.
“Too much bait will draw too many fish into the peg, leading to liners and foul-hookers.
I always start feeding little-and-often and try to tempt a few bites before building the swim up from there.”
Andy Bennett is a fan of the little and often approach
A similar approach is also the best bet on many specimen carp waters, according to Adam Penning.
“Most anglers think that the more bait they use, the more carp they’ll catch and, although this might be true occasionally, it’s a foolhardy approach on all but the most heavily-stocked venues,” he says.
“If fish are wary, then you can bet that they will know something is afoot when they come across a big bed of bait.”
Expert big carper Adam Penning believes fish are becoming increasingly wary of a big bed of bait
Hundreds sign up to 'Super National' match
A NEW competition is to be launched this summer to fill the void left in the match fishing calendar by the cancellation of the Division 1 & 2 Nationals.
The Great Yorkshire Teams of Ten will take place on the New Junction and Aire and Calder Canals on Saturday, August 16, and initial demand for tickets has been impressive as anglers from across the nation have rushed to sign up.
The event, which some people are dubbing the ‘Super National’, is the brainchild of match organiser Paul Caygill, who reveals that 200 participants are already signed up.
“We noticed there was a big space in the match calendar after the Nationals were cancelled and, knowing that many anglers will have already booked time off work, we thought we’d try to sort something out,” Paul explains.
“The match is open to anyone, and we’ll have teams from both Division 1 and Division 2 battling it out on two of the finest venues the country has to offer.”
The two canals in question played host to last year’s Division 1 National, and catch returns were impressive, with more than 100 double-figure weights being put to the scales, and no blanks recorded by the participating anglers.
“We’ve already got 20 teams of 10 fishing, and these aren’t just local lads either – they’re from all over the country – so it should be a brilliant match on a very impressive venue,” Paul adds.
The match will fill the void left by the cancellation of the Div 1 & 2 Nationals
400lb bag smashes Larford Lakes record
Mikey Williams crushed the opposition to win the recent Golden Reel match at Larford Lakes with a venue record weight of 401-8-0, booking himself a return visit to Larford in September for the final and a crack at winning £50,000.
His end peg 30 on the grass bank of the Match Lake had no angler to his right until the opposite bank, and pegs to his left were not drawn. That meant more fish to draw into his own peg.
“They seemed too far up in the water to catch them on pellet, so I put two dead red maggots on the hook to get a slower fall of the bait,” Mikey says.
“After 55 minutes I had 127lb on my clicker. After 90 minutes, though, the carp drifted off to the space on my left.
I needed to get them back in my peg.“I started lashing in casters at 13m, fishing two maggots shallow on the same rig I’d used to mug early on, and I caught another 150lb in the next two hours, but the lad opposite me was bagging as well, so I wasn’t having it all my own way.”
By fishing corn over groundbait to both margins, in the final 15 minutes alone he had 44lb of carp from the left-hand side, which proved to be the better of his edges. “It was solid with fish!” he says.
Larford is on fire at the moment
Biggest F1 ever landed!
The biggest F1 ever recorded has been caught by a carp angler from a Lancashire club water.
David Williams got a huge shock when he netted the colossal 13lb 8oz specimen during a recent carp fishing trip. The fish is considerably bigger than the assumed ceiling weight of F1s, which normally grow to a maximum of about 6lb.
A cross between crucian and common carp, F1s were first farmed 30 years ago to provide year-round sport on the growing commercial match scene.
Simon Hughes, who created the breed, tells Angling Times:
“That is definitely an F1, and by the looks of it it’s one of ours.
“It’s the biggest I’ve heard of, so it’d be a record as far as we’re aware.”
There has never been an official British record for F1s and Simon said the biggest he had previously encountered were around the 9lb-10lb mark.
David (46) caught the new unofficial British best while targeting specimen carp with a 14mm pop-up boilie on a chod rig.
“It gave me a proper scrap,”
said David, who weighed the fish on Reuben Heaton scales.
“When it came in I looked at the lateral line, and then saw no big barbules, and thought it had to be a huge F1.
“My friend had one weighing 10lb 6oz from the same water last winter, so I knew there were a handful of big ones in there.”
David Williams and the unofficial F1 record
Match angler nets tench of a lifetime - Paul Hardy
“At heart I’m a match angler and I love targeting commercials for stockie carp and F1s, but by giving a natural venue a try I’ve ended up catching the tench of a lifetime.
“It all started last year when I stumbled across an old lake near to where I live in Rotherham. As an angler I love being beside the water and naturally look for signs of fish during my walks there.
On a warm summer evening I spotted a number of big fish roll which had to be tench or bream, so I called a few of the local match angling lads to see if they knew anything about the lake’s stock. They reckoned that bream used to be caught on bread there years ago.
“That weekend I headed down and settled in one of just four fishable swims – most of the lake is unfishable due to large reed beds cutting off access. It took me a while casting a lead around to find a clear patch, but eventually I found a gravel bar 65-70 metres out and targeted it with groundbait feeder tackle and two hair-rigged dendrobaena worms.
“After two hours the bream switched on, and they were good ’uns at around 7lb apiece. Then, over the next 30 minutes, I was snapped off three times by fish that clearly weren’t bream. They must have been tench or carp.
“I planned another trip and this time my mate John Hopes was with me. I fished the same swim as before and between us we enjoyed a superb session with plenty of bream and finally some tench, averaging 6lb-7lb – but I just knew I was only scratching the surface. So, I planned yet another session and settled into the same swim again.
After two hours my tip finally slammed round and I was in, a stocky 5lb tench being the culprit. Four further tench of around the same weight followed over the next two hours.
“My session was coming to a close when I had five or six liners, then the tip slammed round again. I struck and straight away this fish took line and headed for a weedbed. It took my line all the way to the clip and I thought it was going to snap, but by giving it some guts I managed to steer it away and put line back on the reel.
“It was now in open water and I could feel it was heavy, but not much different to the five-pounders I’d caught. After five minutes it briefly snagged me in the weed, but I managed to pull it out, which is when it flopped on its side. When I saw it properly I was wiped out by the size of it!
“Once it was in the net it went mental trying to escape. I remember barely being able to lift it out of the water, it was so heavy. I knew it was a special fish, but never in a million years did I think it would weigh 11lb 2oz.
Paul Hardy and his ‘tench of a lifetime’ at 11lb 2oz
I’m just so glad I spotted those fish rolling and put some effort into fishing a venue I would never normally have bothered with. It just goes to show that if an opportunity presents itself, acting on it could just help you catch the fish of a lifetime – as it did with me.”
Big match win confirmed on long drive home
Such are the effects of social distancing measures in match fishing that sometimes winning anglers don’t know they’ve won until an hour after leaving to go home. That’s what happened to Andy Power in a recent Fish O’Mania qualifier at Tunnel Barn Farm.
Rules state that anglers must pack up and leave immediately after weighing in, and after putting 238-6-0 on to the scales the Preston Innovations man did just that, thinking that he hadn’t won. A text 90 minutes into his journey back to Somerset told him he actually had!
“I had a bit of luck, as Luke Bamford went over the weight limit in one of his keepnets,” reveals Andy.
“He’d have won the match easily otherwise!”
Andy’s plan for his peg 5 on Extension Pool draw was based around casting shallow and then fishing tight across to the reeds on the island.
Three hours in on the shallow line at 6m using banded caster he’d caught really well, an estimated 150lb of F1s. When this slowed up, he went out to the reeds with banded 4mm pellet to take around 80lb of carp and F1s in the final two hours.
Andy Power (pictured) had no idea he had won the match until 90-minutes into his drive home.
Nationals won't go ahead in 2020
Fish O’Mania and RiverFest will go ahead this year, but the historic Division 1 and 2 Nationals will not, the Angling Trust has revealed.
A few months ago the idea of any matches being fished seemed far-fetched, so the release of the Trust’s Coarse Competitions calendar this week will be welcome news to the nation’s match anglers.
However, concerns about social distancing mean the Division 1 and 2 Nationals, events that often draw over 500 participants, have been cancelled. It was a tricky decision for the Trust to make, but John Ellis of the Canal and River Trust is fully behind it:
“I’m a huge supporter of our national championships, but deferring both these events for 12 months is a sensible decision that I know most anglers will support.”
The Division 1 & 2 Nationals won’t be taking place this year.
Anglers celebrate after Government lifts ban on competitive fishing
THE final piece in the jigsaw of angling’s full return slotted into place this week after Government gave the green light for competitive fishing to return.
Pleasure anglers received consent to return to the banks three weeks ago, but social distancing guidelines banning big gatherings of people meant that many fishery regulars and matchmen were unable to follow suit.
This has now all changed, however, after the Angling Trust successfully argued that match fishing deserved special dispensation as entrants could socially distance at all times, including at the draw and weigh-in.
The news came as a huge relief for Britain’s commercial venue owners, and the reaction from anglers has been overwhelming, with many fisheries struggling to cope with the instant demand for pegs.
At Somerset’s Viaduct Fishery the phones started ringing off the hook as soon as the announcement was made. Manager Matt Long says:
“We expected anglers to get involved, but we didn’t anticipate selling every ticket for our first batch of matches within 10 minutes! It shows that lots of people are itching to get back.”
Euphoria aside, the welfare of visiting anglers remains a priority for venue owners, and safety protocols have been introduced.
Matt Long adds:
“Everyone’s pegs will be drawn for them. Entrants will be asked to keep away from the weighing-in area.”
Similar provisions have been made at Partridge Lakes in Warrington, where technology is set to play a role in making sure safety guidelines are followed.
Owner Barbara Ikin says:
“Anglers will book on and pay for their peg using an online system and all payouts will be done via bank transfer. It means that everyone can get back to match fishing and stay safe.”
The news has been welcomed by Britain’s top matchmen, among them former Fish O’Mania champion Andy May, although he was keen to sound a note of caution.
“I can’t wait for the buzz of competing again, but Covid-19 hasn’t gone away,” he says.
“It’s important we follow the rules at each fishery to make sure angling continues to be held in high regard by the public.”
The green light has been give to competitive fishing
"There were so many roach you could have used them as a bridge to cross the river" - Keith Arthur
When Pete Burrell amassed 259lb-plus of roach during a match on the famous Sillees River, the weight beggared belief. In a five-hour match on this small river, part of the enormous Erne system, Pete caught 942 roach – yes, he counted them – at one stage catching 12 fish a minute!
Pete fished line-to-hand in a performance that took not only great strength and concentration but also wonderful technique. Every fish has to be caught and unhooked efficiently, rebaiting only when essential as even a couple of dead skins would be seized by ravenous redfins.
The Sillees is one of the waters flowing into the Erne that attracts spawning aggregations of roach and back in those days there were a lot of them! I was taken there one evening by the late Pete Ottewill, who knew as much about fishing the border counties between Ireland and Northern Ireland as anyone.
He took me to meet Oliver, a farmer, who explained that when the main run of roach swam to the stone weir by his farm, their numbers were sufficient to raise the water level enough to swim over the weir!
I fished for an hour that evening and had 42lb of roach. Bizarrely, the swim Burrell famously fished was occupied by a pike angler, livebaiting with a roach! Sadly, on the match the following day, three years after the Burrell catch, I drew too far downstream, away from the fish. I had 50lb in my net after 90 minutes before the bites dried up as the shoal swam through and I weighed in 72lb and won the section.
How ironic then that the Sillees was cursed by the medieval St Faber, making it “poor for fishing, good for drowning”. If Pete had fallen in on the saint’s day, I’m pretty sure he could have walked out on the backs of the roach.
Pete Burrell 259lb roach catch
“Their numbers were sufficient to raise the water level enough to swim over the weir!”
For more fishing history, pick up Angling Times every Tuesday and turn to Arthur’s Archive…