| MARK WINTLE |
| Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish; tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises. Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular column. |
Wintle’s World of Angling – Memorable Matches Part 3 – Speeeeeeeeed!One of the edges that a match angler can have is the ability to catch fish quickly. Early in my match career most matches were a case of catching plenty of small fish, mainly dace, roach and gudgeon, and occasionally bleak. But it was hardly ‘speed fishing’ as a catch of 100 fish was about the limit. That came later.
MY FIRST TASTE of the potential of speed fishing came in the hot summer of 1976. I bought my first pole that summer, just five metres and heavy (Shakespeare International) but it came with three tips, a crook, a flick-tip and standard hollow tip. I’d also started fishing an old sand pit holding rudd. One hot afternoon we had a pole fishing session on the pit. In a timed hour I had 216 rudd. The method had possibilities but where to use it?
Over the next five years I did plenty of pole fishing and refined the small fish, finesse approach but it still wasn’t speed fishing. All changed in 1980 when my club acquired the fishing on a couple of small ponds near Corfe Castle. These teemed with tiny roach and rudd. By the time we got the ponds though it was August and we only had time to arrange four matches before the end of the season. The first two were in August; I drew what became known as the ‘Piranha Pit’ in the first one but it became obvious that on this pit that you needed the weedy side to keep the fish going for long, and I ended up with 5lbs of tiny rudd in the first hour before the swim became devoid of fish. I caught plenty of fish in the other matches and did OK but it was clear that I needed a lot of practice. All winter I practiced my small fish pole technique, graduating from the small bottom-end only peacock quill floats to tiny top-and-bottom floats. I learnt to feed left handed, how to get the length of line right, and how to be organised. Ray Mumford and some Lea bleak aces What was all the effort for? The reason was that I was running a series of small open matches on the ponds the following summer, and the competition, despite the matches being in Dorset, would include Ray Mumford and some Lea bleak aces. Ray had fished for Farnborough in our winter league and, as we’d used the ponds in a winter league, had got an idea of the match potential. On the first match Ray turned up. I drew a bad peg and decided to quietly watch Ray. His peg was 15″ deep; he set up seven whips and proceeded to feed five different areas with a precision that was masterly. Did he win? Only just – he had 920 roach for 15-15, 7lbs clear, and a catch that was and remains a match record. A lot of pennies dropped that day; how to plunder a swim without killing it, the smoothness that comes from practice, just how good Ray was at his peak, and how to really catch fast. By then I’d replaced the old Shakespeare pole with a Garbolino SLV with flick-tip. It was much lighter than the old pole. A timed 1000 fish in just over three hours The week following Ray’s visit I did a timed 1000 fish one evening. Prior to that my best was 256 fish in an hour. That night I hit 330 an hour, the 1000 taking a timed 3 hours 5 minutes. By the end of the summer I’d had my first speed fishing win, getting 1320 rudd for 15-12, but it was clear that getting a good draw was as vital to success as technique. It was also vital to be able to catch for as long as possible in a match, not always easy with small rudd that had a habit of disappearing with little warning. We also discovered that five hours at this sort of pace was hard work; fading in the last hour was commonplace as our right shoulders seized up. Proper bleak whips Expectations the next summer were high but a series of algal kills put paid to the fishing on the two ponds near Corfe Castle. A good fishing friend and I had other irons in the fire though. We’d stocked another larger lake with 500 two ounce rudd in 1980. In 1981 they’d bred very successfully, and in 1982, with matches switched back to this pond, we’d realised that in certain pegs there were loads of these tiny rudd (80 to the pound!) and that it was just a matter of time before we got one of them. By then we had proper bleak whips, and we put in a lot of surreptitious practice, finding out which pegs held the rudd in numbers, how quickly we could catch them and the best method. Matches were being won with single tench of 3lbs and two pounds was a good weight but on the first two matches we both drew badly and had to join the rest of the field in hoping for a tench. No one else had figured out the rudd as match winners though, and so when the third match came up and we both drew on the rudd pegs it was time to go for broke. It was only a four hour match. My mate Phil said he’d see how I got on in the first hour before switching to the rudd. We were in sight of one another across a corner of the lake. After an hour I’d got 310 rudd and Phil switched but even though I was slowing considerably by the end of the match he’d given me too much of a head start. When it came to the weigh in we decided to play it low key. My 11-11 (1000 rudd) was too much for his 8-03. Back at the draw I announced the results. Those thinking they’d frame with 3lb had a shock; one junior had picked up on what we were doing and made third with 4-14. Eventually the bream introduced in 1983 made such an impact that from the 90s onwards even small rudd weights close to 20lbs were no longer enough. But before then there were a few occasions when they did give me a way to win. I’d replaced the glass whips of the early 80s with Browning Profil whips. These were the ultimate for speed fishing with fine carbon tips and ultra light yet robust construction. I’ve yet to try better tools for this type of fishing. I developed a variation on the rudd bashing tactics as the skimmers and bream gradually took over. It was clear that some pegs could produce rudd for a short time – maybe an hour. Tactics were simple; feed a swim further out with groundbait whilst blitzing the rudd on a short whip. As soon as the rudd fishing slowed in pace the short whip was put aside, and I could concentrate on catching roach, skimmers and bream. If the rudd continued to feed I stuck with them. Spectacular results The results were occasionally spectacular. One match I fed a 6 metre line with caster and groundbait then went for rudd at three metres. 350 in the first 45 minutes meant a flying start yet they vanished in less than two minutes before the hour was up. A switch to a five metre whip and caster on the bottom brought another thirty pounds of bream and skimmers for an easy win and match record. Another match (4 hours this time) brought 950 rudd in the first 2 hrs 55mins of the match (first hour 406) before they disappeared leaving me to top up with half a dozen skimmers in the last hour but the match was long over as 19-09 was far too much for the rest of the field. That day Phil commented that he’d tried for rudd for a while, then paused and checked out my catch rate (he could see me across the lake), and when he realised I was catching at up to ten a minute, slung his whip up the bank realising he had no chance. Although my days of speed fishing are long past (and it is a young man’s game) it is worth bringing out this formidable weapon in the match anglers’ armoury. I found it useful on other venues, getting bleak catches, including 950 fish from a badly flooded Stour for 17-15 and 15-09 from the Thames on a day when second was 3-09. It takes a lot of skill, practice, stamina, co-ordination for feeding and the right gear and bait to catch in excess of 300 an hour. In case you’re wondering, yes, you do have to count the fish despite getting so many. It’s the only way to know whether you are speeding up, slowing down, and on course to get somewhere. Today the speed king mantle rightly belongs to Hadrian Whittle whose outstanding bleak catches from the Wye far exceed even my best results. His best is 51lbs of bleak in a match. Next time I look at how match anglers can be oblivious to what is happening!  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