Wintle’s World of Angling

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 weekly column.

As another season ends, us traditionalists (purists, historians? according to insult) put our rods to one side for a while and contemplate the season that has just finished. It’s time to start mowing the wallpaper and painting the grass (or is it the other way round?). Still doesn’t make sense, does it? Best left alone then.

What’s more important is to start making plans for next season, or even the spring, possibly based on the events of last season. Are there any lessons to learn from last season? Maybe? How big an excuse do I need to treat myself to a new rod or reel? Not much. Fishing is always changing. Some waters may be in decline, others in the ascendancy. Are there new opportunities to try that need to be planned? What waters should I be trying to find out about? Oh, and in case you think I have no problem waiting three months to get out fishing again, take a look at this Angling Times report from March 1972.

Young Mark Wintle in AT

Nothing changes. I’ve always found it hard to wait to get fishing again so I will be fishing somewhere during the next three months but not half as regularly as during the season.

What went right?
Apart from catching some fine fish intentionally, my most enjoyable and enduring experience from last season has been, and continues to be, being part of the FISHINGmagic community. I have put plenty into FM, but I’ve also got a tremendous amount out of it, both in information and friendships. What’s more, it has helped my fishing by making me focus on specific goals rather than just going fishing and hoping for the best.

It has been a year of second bests; in that I have only beaten one personal best yet had second/third best fish of several species. I shan’t give up hope for this must show I am on the right track, and that with a bit more effort next season a few more personal bests should tumble. I have stopped fishing and hoping, and gone back to a much more specific and confident approach to my fishing. It’s probably when I stopped match fishing that I’ve got lazy in not making the extra effort. Now I’m seeing the difference in my results and treating a feature day like a match with careful planning on venue, swims, tackle, tactics and bait, and it shows. I fish harder too.

I spent much more time fishing for carp, crucians and tench last summer, and enjoyed it immensely. I have a lot to learn about using pellets as bait, and love ’em or hate ’em, they’re here to stay as an effective bait. The stillwater fishing was at the expense of some of my more usual summer river fishing, and I don’t think that I even tried to catch a barbel last summer or autumn. That said, many local anglers found the going hard on the Stour and Avon last summer and autumn with the very low water. Some of those waters are very heavily pressured indeed, with many noted swims fished every single day through the summer.

The River Wye, Kerne Bridge (click for bigger picture)

Despite my endeavours in trying to get improved fixed spool reels for trotting, I have yet to get a serious taker in designing a better reel. It’s something to do with the UK forming about 2% of the world reel market. But I have grown used to using a Shimano Stradic GTM 1000. It has taken plenty of practice, and I can still see where it could be improved drastically (a wider rather than longer spool), but that Fighting Drag and bail roller, and the gearing generally, are simply brilliant for playing big fish.

I am finally learning to travel light, at least some of the time. Ditching the keepnet and seat box for a rover bag hasn’t stopping me catching fish but it does make me mobile. All I need to do now is remember to take whatever item it is that I usually find I’ve forgotten.

What went wrong?
Firstly, I have yet to get around to fishing a number of rivers that I hoped to visit this past season. They’re still on my list, along with plenty of new rivers. So one day I will make it to the Kennet, Test, Parrett, Exe, Bristol Avon, and who knows, the Wear, Tees, Dove, Wharfe… yet I did manage to get to the Avon, Stour, Frome, Windrush, Allen, Thames, Wye, and Ouse, as well as numerous stillwaters. To whet your appetite for next season, just drool over these pictures of the Wye and Wensum in summer.

Secondly, on my local rivers the dace and roach fishing remains disappointing. There are a lot of small fish around in certain localised areas, especially three-year old dace (around seven inches). Decent roach are scarce; even fish over half a pound, never mind the big ones. Several of my mates have fished hard for big roach last season yet hardly had a fish over a pound. Forget the headline news about the glut of 3-15 roach at Ibsley, you really can count the monster roach on the fingers of one hand. The truth is that until the problems with the ever-increasing cormorants are resolved with their numbers reduced to 1978 levels this situation is going to continue to worsen. One ten-mile stretch of the Stour, from Blandford to Wimborne is virtually devoid of dace and roach. There’s not much else either, yet twenty years ago this stretch provided fantastic dace fishing as well as some enormous roach including the record. It’s time to put dace amongst others (rudd, crucians, salmon) on the endangered list. Even some stretches of the lower Stour that weren’t too bad two or three years ago have been badly hit.

The River Wensum (click for bigger picture)

The weather and river conditions this past year have been challenging to say the least, with a heatwave, and then a drought that lasted until December, followed by floods and cold snaps that made the fishing tough at times. After getting some rain in mid winter, we’ve had yet another dry spell lasting a month. But I’ve known much worse, and apart from patchy fishing on the rivers, it hasn’t been disastrous. Next season will no doubt bring its own challenges of weather and conditions.

New plans
Believe it or not, I’ve only fished for perch twice this last season. I must try to find some time to have a go for them next season especially as the Stour has some very big fish (rumours of four-pounders) nowadays. That means I need to sort out a reliable source of lobworms. I also got told about some big rudd last summer yet did nothing about it. Next summer I shall find time to fish for them during the summer evenings.

Though I didn’t fish for barbel last summer, I must have a go next summer for them, maybe even on the float. My other new challenge, living so close to the sea, is to try to do one or two features on sea fishing. I’ve got to find something that is actually exciting and skilful enough that there is some real action. I have a few ideas bubbling away (a bass perhaps?), and I’m sure that with the many contacts that I have, something suitable will come up. I drive past sea anglers on the way to work each day, and I’m afraid slinging a ragworm on 20lb gear into the muddy wastes of Holes Bay in Poole Harbour, even if there is a rare chance of a 3lb flounder, is not exciting!

Writing for FM
Much as I enjoy writing for FISHINGmagic, I enjoy reading other peoples articles even more, as do several thousand others. Unlike a newspaper or magazine, an Internet magazine like FISHINGmagic is not restricted to page space every week or month. And whilst the techies have to provide the means of presenting it, and Graham has to edit the material into shape, the site is perpetually hungry for new and original material as Graham and other regular writers like Kevin Perkins and Dave Cooper will attest. There are hundreds of angling related subjects, and thousands of potential writers, and Graham is hoping to hear from some of you. Whether it is a how to do it, a descriptive piece, a story, humour, angling politics, history, technique, review, tackle design, ecology, match fishing, carp, barbel, chub, bass, cod, trout, loach (cunning and size 28 hooks needed for these little blighters!), burbot, catfish, pike, pole fishing, legering…

Graham’s guidelines are simple; about 1500 words (though anything from 800 to 2500 will do), start at the beginning (tell ’em what it’s about), tell it as it is, and finish at the end (the conclusion). Keep the pictures (yes you need pictures) as JPEG files separate from the text. And above all remember it’s about the magic of fishing!

Mine are simpler. Write in the active voice: ‘I caught a big chub’, rather than ‘A big chub was caught.’ (by whom exactly?), and try to forget the purple prose; nobody ever uses terms like ‘a murder of crows’ or ‘leather-lipped chevins’ in actual conversations, do they?

Now, where the bloody hell did I put that lawnmower?

Next week: ‘Playing Fish on Light Tackle’