1st May – Clattercote Reservoir
Well, if I wasn’t a believer before, I certainly am now. Without doubt there is a divine one who looks after the souls of our departed friends and relatives, and in this case it is Keith Culley – or ‘The Pole’ as he was affectionately known. Once again we met at Clattercote to celebrate the memory of Keith in a match style competition. In the early days it was a float fishing only competition in honour of Keith’s passion for his pole. Indeed, originally it was planned for poles only, but eventually it was decided to allow any method and thus bring in a wider audience from FISHINGmagic. And so, when the call went out to start at 10:30am, and multiple versions of method bombs hit the water in a crescendo of sound, I reckon Keith made a quick dash to see the ‘Governor’ and said – “Hey, Guv, will you take a look at that lot, not a pole in sight!” “Indeed my son, we must of course teach them a lesson.” And so it came to pass that, once again, it absolutely heaved it down. Now if this conspiracy theory is a little far fetched for you all I would understand, but the fact is it started raining at the beginning of the match, stopped right at the end, and to make matters worse you only had to journey 30 miles down the M40 to reach bright sunshine. When I got home my wife commented on my nice colour which I had obviously got from sitting in the sunny weather they had all day…..70 odd miles south as the crow flies! Anyway, it was still a pleasure to meet up once again in Keith’s memory and battle it out against the wits of many competent anglers……and the divine intervention. While there was the usual jovial mood, I cannot help thinking that there was an air of reservation amongst some. Whether this was due to the arrival of Stu Dexter or the £ 2.99 Tesco breakfast after which it was difficult to move, or the cold North Easterly, I really don’t know, but I certainly felt it.
With the pegs drawn, and the longish walk to the far side, which for me was the longest of all, having drawn the last peg, the mood definitely picked up as we noticed numerous fish topping. This mood however soon went downhill for those moving to the far pegs as fish movement was far less obvious – well that’s my excuse anyway. It soon became apparent that it was going to be a hard 5 hours. After an hour or so there was one small roach reported for all our efforts. And by half way through the match only one carp was rumoured to have been landed. At this time one of the locals passed us by and insisted to me that in weather like this the carp will be caught right under our feet – and so my master plan was hatched. Sadly my half hour pre-baiting was soon undone by two swans homing in on my carpet of pellets like it was an evening out at Gordon Ramsey’s. At the final knocking’s I think only six people from 26 anglers caught fish, and only four of them catching potential match-winning carp. John Fletcher had a nice 12lb 6oz fish for a total of 16lb 7oz, and Pete Adam’s weighed in with 13lb 5oz. However star of the day was Malc Doyle with 18lb 7oz and the largest fish of the day at 12lb 8oz, so well done Malc. His tactics were the bagging waggler fished at about 4 feet depth, something I would never had thought of given the conditions. So, the eminent past winners Stu Dexter (2000 and 2003) and Graham Marsden (2002), master carper Medium Rik (not Big any more) and numerous other good anglers failed to catch, which makes me feel one whole lot better. Apart from that roach, the only other point of note was a 1lb 3oz perch caught by Alan Roe’s son – a very nice fish indeed. Well, actually Coops did have a 3lb 11oz fish but we don’t want to embarrass him do we?
Here’s to next year, I’ll certainly be there again, and Keith, if you are listening…..you have made your point, so have a word for us next time? Note from Graham There could be some truth in what Stuart says about Keith bringing down the wrath of God upon us for no longer fishing a pole match, or at least a float only match, but somehow I don’t think so. Keith was such a nice man he was more likely to have just shrugged his shoulders and hoped we enjoyed ourselves.
Which of course we did, in spite of this being the worst year for catching fish since the event began. We put the match back by a week or two this year in the hope of better weather, but it wasn’t to be. Sod’s Law said it would be cold and wet in the Banbury area. Like Stuart, I phoned my wife too, and it was the same back home in the north, sunshine all day and temperatures reaching 70 degrees F. Must be a bloody conspiracy somewhere! Even so, a fair number of fish were being caught from the deeper, dam end, and it was noticeable that as you got further away from the dam the catches diminished, until you reached blank territory where the majority of us were pegged. And that included the far bank where even the seasoned match anglers were experiencing dry nets. We enjoyed it as usual though, the breakfast was good, although it was a shock to see Medium Rik mincing about with a veggie brekky and not even going for a curry afterwards. And our bet on the side of a fiver for the best weight came to nothing because we both blanked! The next shock was seeing Stu Dexter blank as well. We thought he would have winkled out a fish or two. Anyway, here’s looking forward to next year, when we’re going to book the pegs right up at the dam end. Now you watch, the weather will be scorching and all the carp will be at the opposite end on the shallows, getting ready for spawning! |
