Although I’d never met John Ledger I can remember his postings on FM, with his no nonsense approach and the great respect in which he was held by lots of the other FM’ers.
About the middle of October this year I read a thread started by Fred Bonney asking about when was this year’s John Ledger memorial fish-in on the River Idle and Sean Meeghan stepped up to the mark to organize it.
Of all the names that started to show interest in the Events thread although I knew most of them from their postings on FM I had only previously met two. Graham from the Clattercote teach in and Fred from the Barbel show. So it was with some trepidation that I entered mine. Thank goodness Eddie Hirst another match ‘Virgin’ put his name down as it meant I wouldn’t be on my own now.
Even at my age I began to experience those old feelings of anxious excitement that I had as a child when something good was going to happen. This was a day out I was going to enjoy and furthermore I would be able to put faces to names.
Leading up to ‘The Match’ I read about the Idle, tied loads of small hooks to fine line, made sure I ordered the casters from the tackle shop and went through my tackle, checking everything. This wasn’t a case of meticulous preparation, more a case of I had hardly fished this year due to family commitments and couldn’t remember what items were where and in what bag.
Friday night the car was all packed and it was off to bed early, could I sleep? Could I…….! But the alarm sounded and I was up, showered, dressed and off by 5:45am. The roads were reasonably quiet and the journey uneventful except that I missed a turning on the A1. A junction had been altered that was not obvious on the Sat-Nav. Even so I arrived earlier than expected to find an easily recognisable Sean talking to a local piker who just couldn’t believe how far people were travelling to fish the Idle. “You’ve come how far? What to fish ‘ere? How far to fish ‘ere?”, he kept repeating. Sean suggested that we have a look at the river, so off we went leaving the piker still trying to understand how far people were travelling to fish ‘ere. It was decided that the Idle was anything but and flowing much faster than normal.
With a good breakfast over it was off in the cars to the match site and start getting suitably dressed. The draw was held and the pools money collected with me drawing peg 1 and off we went to our respective pegs and began to tackle up.
My peg was on a slight left hand bend and had a bush projecting about 20 feet out into the river immediately downstream. I found it very difficult to determine the depth of the river in front of me due to the flow. No sooner had the float tackle settled than it was at the bush and with flood debris hanging from the branches the first run-throughs were a case of, ‘am I going to get snagged or not?’ Derek Morespiders on peg 2 and me never heard the “All In!” shout and started fishing about twenty minutes after everyone else. (Make a note to self to read things properly and write them down, don’t rely on memory). The float didn’t last long before the quivertip was in use.
Derek and I had been fishing for about an hour when he said he was going to have a walk along the length and see how all the others were getting on. He reported back that no-one had as much as a bite. I continued switching baits and alternating briefly with the float and Derek kept having a walk and reporting back that nothing was being caught. Although he said that Steve Spiller, fishing about 170yards upstream at the bridge and well away from the match length, was having a fish a chuck and Wendi his wife was catching pike.
The poor fishing continued and with less than half an hour to go I had a very small knock on the tip. The flow had by now slowed right down and I switched back to the float. Derek came over and I remarked that at this rate, when I got home and my wife asked how I got on I could say that I came equal first. He then left for a last reporting walk. He hadn’t gone too far when I retrieved at the end of the trot and felt what at first I thought was a snag but the vibration then said fish. I had caught a very small roach.
The thought started to go through my mind that if no-one else caught and this was the winning fish what do I say? Do I try and tell everyone that it was the slight adjustment to the shotting that made the bait presentation perfect and skill at trotting a float? Or do I tell them the truth; that it’s probably a Japanese hybrid, a Kamikaze roach. But I needn’t have worried, in two trots down the float dipped and I had two more small roach.
Derek returned saying still no-one had caught and looked very disbelieving at first when I said I had three fish. Whilst we were talking the float dipped again and I caught my final fish, a small chub. A winning weight, in fact I was the only one in the match to catch. With luck like this I should have been straight off to have a pound on the Lottery.
Now I know this might sound a bit clichéd, but winning was not the important part for me. Taking part was the fun, fishing with some anglers whose experience far outweighs mine and being able to meet so many friendly people. A day I thoroughly enjoyed.
So any of you FM’ers who have trepidations about joining in any of the fish-ins, don’t! Get your names down and join in. If I can, anyone can.
Finally, let me offer a big thank you to Sean Meeghan for organising the fish-in and to everyone who attended for making newcomers like me to fish-ins very welcome. Thank you.
