The Sywell Tench Fish-in/James Farrow MemorialCakey and I had been talking about arranging this years fish in and had agreed to sort out dates at the weekend for sometime late May or early June. Next thing we know this bloke Mark Hewitt had arranged a Tench fish in at Sywell for the weekend of 30th June and a number of people who regularly fish the annual Carp memorial match had said they were going. No problem, Mark being the gent he is said lets amalgamate the two events. I have to say this year’s Charity fish-in was probably one of the best I have fished. The weather was great as was the company and without any sarcasm at all Wol’s BBQ was superb, many thanks Wol. Greg may have regretted the chilli sauce twice, on eating it and the next morning when he knew the true meaning of ‘afterburn’. Cakey again did a wonderful job with the on line auction, keeping a check on when bidding for items was up and collecting all the money in. Cakey, Di and I, and I’m sure all the people involved this year, would like to say really big thank you, all your effort has been much appreciated. On the subject of money I am very pleased to say that on 17th June we will be handing over to the Norwich & District Youth Diabetes group the grand total of £ 2432.80. If I receive any other donations as I may from friends these will be added. The chairman of the charity is absolutely astounded at the amount raised. This money will be used to support directly ALL the children in Norfolk with Diabetes and their families, over 400 children. Every one of those children will benefit from the generosity of the Fishing Magic members. The fish in itself led to mixed fortunes for the participants. Cakey settled for bird corner as it was closest swim to the car park except for the one occupied by ‘Chubber’. It was named bird corner as Cakey spend more time looking behind him at the female dog walkers and joggers. His excuse was that he was missing Buddy. I had a few calls from him alerting me to the impending arrival behind my swim of attractive well endowed young ladies. You can imagine it can’t you, ‘Posh there is an attractive well endowed young lady wearing a tight white T shirt heading your way walking a lovely Golden Labrador’ or words to that effect. Besides being bird corner it also happened to be no fish corner, that together will ‘kipping’ on the ground and having nightmares meant that when Cakey woke up the first morning poor old ‘Chubber’ could take no more and had departed very early in the morning.
Who won this year with the biggest fish? Well let’s say that as he won last year he will be severely handicapped at next year’s event. Tackle will be ‘gentles’, quill float, cat gut an old wooden centre pin lashed on to an old tank aerial and put in a swim of my choosing. No seriously, well done to Specihunter who landed a superb Tench of 10lbs 2oz. Many congratulations James it was a cracking fish that any of us would have been pleased to have caught. In fact many of us would have been pleased to have even had a bite. Sywell was a lovely venue, one that I would love to fish again, but I think it is fair to say it is well past its heyday of the 90’s in terms of the number of fish it produces, but the quality and average size of the Tench is still impressive. When the likes of Wol and Andy Nellist blank you know it’s hard, mind you poor old Andy was far from well. I did have a bite along with Steve Spiller but we both lost our fish after having them on briefly. Who else caught? Well Paul ‘Brummie’ Williams was in second place with a cracking fish of 8lbs 4oz and thanks to Claudia he also picked up a lovely trophy, many thanks once again Claudia. Jonny Northmore, the one time FM apprentice, Graham had hair before he started temporarily with FM, caught a another big fish of 7lbs 13oz. Fish also fell to Derek Morespiders, Greg Whitehead and Jonny’s mate Dave. I think I may have upset Greg when meeting him for the first time by saying that I recognised him from his FM profile photograph! No offence meant Greg. Thanks to Wendi for the name badges, mine took some explaining to Di my wife. I think Mike’s (Mithandir) was the best, simple and understated, it read:-
I know Jonny has written a bit as has Brummie. Oh and by the way Jonny yes I did have the first ticket out at the raffle, but fluttering eyelashes and the promise of some blue Smarties led to me gifting it to Claudia. At least in her hands it might acquire a decent bend in it from a fish rather than being propped against a wall at my house. Just to finish by saying a big, big thanks to Graham and all you good folks at FM who have supported this Charity event and also again to Mark, Cakey and Wol and especially to all of you who made the effort to attend and make it such a pleasant and enjoyable weekend. ‘Brummie’s’ BitSywell reservoir needs no introduction from me on its prowess as a producer of big tench, it has, arguably been at the top of the ladder for a long, long time, some of the anglers who write about it now must have been about 10years old or less when Sywell was producing Tench that covered the weeklies week after week and yet it still manages to own as probably the best circuit tench water ever? incredible when you think how waters can change over the years. When Mark put forward his idea for a FM fish-in on the reservoir I for one jumped at the chance, it seemed ideal, others obviously felt the same, a great water for a social with a real chance of one of us catching something very special……the water could possibly give every one of us there the chance of a PB tench, and trust me some of the lads on the fish-in have caught some serious tinca’s!…………a FM social on such a water, I just had to go for it. It was a natural flow amongst the FM regulars to combine Mark’s idea with James Farrow memorial get together, I know it’s officially a match but I hope Richard will forgive me when I say I prefer the term “get-together”…………for those reading this who don’t know, James Farrow was Richard’s son, a fellow angler whom we remember by these get-togethers…………James passed on at a very young age whilst fishing and Richard, Cakey, Wol etc put in time and effort to raise money for charity in his memory…….and what a great job they do!! I don’t know what this year’s total is, perhaps by the time this is put on FM we will and Graham will let you know? Back to Sywell…….a chat amongst regulars on the water during a recce told me that Sywell was changing, it’s silver fish had been hammered by cormorants and the tench to were fewer than in previous years, on the plus side they were getting bigger, this tied in with les competition for the available food supply and like most weedy waters the food supply is good…………fish-ins in the past by other very experienced tench anglers had, I believe, resulted in blanks all round….this tied in with my own experiences of the going getting tough when lots of anglers are on such waters, but what the heck, it was a social and the water certainly held the goods. I arrived about 9.30ish on the Friday….after my son cajoled me into buying two full English’s on the way down….I had planned on a nice little swim that could take the two of us on the west back but found a couple of hippies from Worcester encamped there, Dickie and Lungi Jim had beat me to it, though not as yet caught, I settled into a swim back toward the dam from them at a respectable distance. The “Scrumpies” Wendi, Steve and “Lucky” Spiller later followed the the superstar previously known as Speci but now “The Plank” (well anyone who poses for a pic like he did is only gonna get called one thing!). Gradually others began to arrive, and we settled into our swims………..between us we were trying a fair variety of baits and there were certainly tench in our swims but as evening wore on they just seemed to tease all of us on the west bank and also as I found out later on the other bank too……the tench continued to show as darkness came and I remember saying to Steve that I fancied our chances at first light….he agreed……… We were all up early and soon on our rods willing them to burst into action, the tench were showing in all our swims……..out of the corner of my eye I saw “Speci” (he wasn’t “The Plank” at this stage) into something, so after telling my lad to watch the rods I went armed with camera to take a look……..the fish was obviously what we had come for, a very big tench!! Speci was understandably like a dog with two tails and couldn’t believe the size of the fish…..I zero his scales on his dripping weigh sling and in she went…….the scales went over 10lb and held! they didn’t drop back to 9lb 14oz etc and we gave him the double…..they held and both myself and Steve Spiller agreed on 10lb 2oz without hesitation………one hell of a tench when you can count the number you have caught on one hand eh Speci?……congratulations mate, you may never better it but no one can ever take the memory of it away……..artificial popped up yellow corn was the bait wasn’t it? The fish went back strongly and we were all now in a state of high expectancy…….and low and behold it was my turn for the buzzer to sing and the baitrunner to purr into action, the fish was straight into weed but came out and was soon in the net, I have to confess my first thoughts were she is as big as the last one but when I had a good look I changed my mind………but at 8lb5oz, weighed by Steve, I wasn’t complaining. Bait was my favourite boilie in 12mm guise coupled with a mix of normal and breakdown pellets of the same “flavour” in a cage feeder. I would love to say the Tench came thick and fast to all of us after that, but despite the odd rumour from the opposite bank………just to stop The Plank struttin, no more were caught despite a lot of different baits being tried………I scaled down to maggots on tight line bolt rigs and had nothing….as did the others on my bank trying various baits and rigs.
Early Saturday evening smoke signals from the opposite bank told us Wol was up and at it so we reeled in, zipped up the bivvies and headed round for the pow wow! ………..Food, ale, and smoke were in plenty supply……..and some strange blue things in a bottle being downed by the female contingency!!…………the company was superb and Wol did us proud and well and truly sated our appetites…….nice one mate, it must have took some planning…..I know it’s a well used clich  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission, which supports our community.
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