Clattercote is a British Waterways reservoir and a top mixed fishery and I was getting quietly excited from the reports I’d been hearing from the local match anglers about winning weights of a 100lb-plus of carp and tench. So after a decent brekkie at Tesco’s off we trooped to the venue to find that we wouldn’t be the only match on the lake after all.
After about half an hour without much being caught we quickly realised that the majority of the fish were holding up far out in the open water, in perfect range for a method feeder but too far for most float rods, even the long range method waggler that I was employing could only pick up the odd fish. With an hour or so gone, Alan Roe on peg 50 was picking up some good tench in the more sheltered conditions at the top end of the lake and having had a bit of time to adapt to the conditions we began catching the odd fish here and there. A nice downpour halfway through reminded us all of last year, but this time it was obvious there were fish to be caught if you could get out to them! With about an hour to go, the weather got brighter and slowly a few good bags were being put together.
Joining Rik and Graham and the rest of the gang for the weigh in I was pleased to see that most were happy with the day’s sport and pleased to see a good bag of fish weighed in. Mcwallet had done it again, and outfished Rik on the next peg to weigh in an all-carp bag of 30lb 11oz. He also coined it in with a nice carp of 9lb 10oz to take the biggest fish prize. Graham fished a big bagging waggler at 50yds range. Four of his carp were caught on maggot and one on pellet. He fed his swim with a mixture of catapulted groundbait, pellets, caster and sticky-magged maggots.
This left Dave ‘Chub’ Johnson to come in fourth with 9lb 14oz. He sat next to me biteless until half way through, and then missed any number of sail-away bites, kicking himself at losing a couple of good fish which may have seen him put Alan out of second place. The best fish of the day for many of us was the tench that Wendy Perry caught after Graham had a walk along and tweaked her tackle! It was a personal best for Wendy being as it was the first tench she has ever caught. It wasn’t easy fishing and she stuck to the job and really showed her determination. We adjourned to a pub in Banbury where Graham presented himself with the trophy and pocketed his winnings, even offering to buy a round! Of course he was the last into the pub and we were all taking a first sip at the time. He did make up for it later in the curry house but as it was mostly coke’s (everyone was driving) it’s not the same is it?
Next year we are changing the rules slightly so that any method of fishing is allowed. So we will all turn out with method mix and feeder rods, prepared for wind and driving rain, only to find a gloriously sunny day with a light ripple on the water, perfect for float fishing under the rod tip! Well here’s hoping anyway, see you all at the next fish-in at Atcham! |
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