| MARK WINTLE |
| 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. |
PLAN A Nowadays, I tend to think of myself as an ex-matchman rather than an active one. The days of two, even three, matches a week are long gone (two in a day on several occasions), and I save the little bit of match fishing that I do for the annual Christchurch AC Christmas match in early December. I haven’t fished this match every year, though most years I have a crack. My record in it isn’t bad at all; a couple of wins, a third, a fifth and a couple of sixths plus a few also-rans; not bad in match that used to be a 120 peg sell-out. These days it’s diminished to a still healthy 50 pegs. This year the prolonged dry spell through November meant a river running on the clear side with a normal winter flow. In such conditions, one’s worst fears are a severe frost but high pressure and plenty of cloud meant wind free and mild conditions. The two Sundays before the match had seen the water hold two other big matches; the Stour Championships and the now much diminished Winter league (just 60 pegs, a long way short of the 132 pegs it once was). Both matches had produced 30lbs winning weights and good backup weights, mostly dace and roach with some chub and even a good barbel. Prospects were good, and armed with half a gallon of bronze maggots, I got to the draw in good time. Though the majority of competitors are match regulars, there are always a few die-hards that, like me, turn out once a year to greet old friends and savour the occasion. The banter was good, the excitement and mickey taking exuberant. This year the feeling was that it would be a hard match. The river is okay but far from perfect being a bit too clear. Some years, twenty pounds of roach has barely made the first six but for that you need just the right amount of colour in the river. You still need a good draw, and though the fish do move about from day to day, a group around the map of the pegs were dissecting likely hot spots. Forty pegs were on the tidal water from MEXE compound up to the lower boundary of Throop plus ten pegs further upriver at Dudsbury. With pools money paid, it was time for the draw. I picked peg 28, and a check on the map showed a peg between the bridges at Iford. Last year’s runner-up came from the area with 26lb so it was potentially a good draw. My main worry was the tide. It was a neap with low water at 9 am. There wasn’t going to be a high until teatime, and during the match, it was only going to rise slightly. Would this mean that the early part of the match was going to be fruitless with a possible strong finish? When I got to the river, my fears were confirmed. I was exactly midway between the two bridges on the Christchurch bank. It’s wide here, so having an angler drawn on the other bank but thirty yards upstream just below the new bridge didn’t present a problem. But the lack of water was alarming. I had a ten-yard trot about two rod lengths out that started at fifteen inches deep shallowing up to two inches, all over gravel. The effective trot was barely five yards, and fast water at that. Thirty yards downstream there was a very fast and shallow glide but reaching past the dry parts of the swim and overhanging trees looked impossible. I left the gear in my car and went to talk to the pegger-out. He reckoned it ought to get better later on, and that in the circumstances the peg was in the right place. I was far from convinced, and weighed up the prospect of going to Throop for a couple of hours.
After chatting for an hour, and with the all-in sounding, I finally got my tackle out of the car and went to my peg. The bank is high, but at the base, there was just three inches of water. It was underneath a large ash tree that meant I had to be careful not to foul my rod tip in the branches. Just to get my keepnet in meant that it had to be anchored upstream to find some depth. I decided on a one-rod set-up. A little peacock waggler, stubby and taking four BB, with a couple of no. 8 shot down and a size 18 Drennan Carbon Chub hook made it a simple rig. As I was tackling up a fish rose in just six inches of water just a few feet out from the bank. There were fish there after all. I managed to get a bait stand into the gravel, and with fifteen minutes gone, finally started to fish. After five minutes of exploring the swim, I decided to concentrate on the main run about two rod lengths out, it being too fast further out. By under shotting the float and slightly retarding it, I achieved a reasonable presentation before the hook caught on the bottom to drag the float under. I fed twenty maggots every cast and got into an easy rhythm of cast, feed, trot and retrieve. After ten minutes, the float dipped and a gentle low strike put a curve in the rod. It was a little chub of three ounces. Five minutes later, I’d got his twin. This was a promising start. More followed with one or two around eight or ten ounces plus a couple of good dace of around five ounces. After an hour, with three pounds in the net, disaster struck. A small chub was ready for netting when it shook its head, shed the hook, the float flew up into the trees and tied a bloody great granny knot in the branches. I pulled for a break, losing the float. I re-tackled with a slightly bigger float but it didn’t fish the same. The beauty of simple rigs and float attachments is that you can change floats quickly. I switched to a lighter version taking 3 BB with an eight and two tens down the line, and soon found that it was better than my original choice. All this time the tide was almost imperceptively rising. Though it had only come up an inch, the current steadied slightly. And the fish were biting as a result. The second hour continued in much the same vein as the first; more chublets to a pound plus some good dace. After two hours, I felt relaxed. I’d got around eight pounds in the net with the chance of more, and still the possibility of a strong last hour. Though I could not see any chance of winning at this stage, the chance of making the top ten and winning a turkey was getting stronger. Perhaps it was too good to last. Half way through the match the going got very tough. I noticed that the tide had dropped very slightly, only an inch but enough to spook the fish. I’d also had several out of season brown trout, a rare occurrence on the Stour, and no help to my weight. I plugged away, feeding another line in mid river and gradually learning how to avoid a nasty snag that claimed several hooks. I picked up odd dace and chublets from further out and even one or two fish from way down the swim in a little very fast mid-river run. Though this two-hour spell was quiet, I still added another couple of pounds. There was a chance of making double figures. With a very good angler on last year’s hotspot, winning seemed unlikely but a top five place might still be possible. The angler opposite was having a nightmare, and was either totally out of his depth on the river, or expecting a much easier match. With an hour to go, he packed up, totally fishless. At this time, I noticed that I was getting shy bites on my original line yet not hitting them. Maybe a smaller hook would help me catch them? I tried a twenty and started to hook some good dace but was also losing too many. It was time for another tack. I changed to a very fine wire Kamasan B511 size 18 tied to 0.08mm. This did the trick and the dace were fooled again. The chublets had by now all but disappeared, and I was getting just dace. With fifteen minutes left, I reckoned another four fish would add a pound. These took ten minutes to catch. Time for another four? 3:26, a good dace. 3:27, my first roach at eight ounces. 3:28, another five-ounce dace. 3:29, my best dace of the day at eight ounces, and that was it. I’ve had over two pounds in the last quarter of an hour and must have thirteen or fourteen pounds? I quickly packed up, secured my keepnet so that no chublets could jump out and went to look for the scalesman the other side of the bridge. By now, the river was coming alive with fish as the light faded and the tide finally rose; during the match, it had only moved two inches all day. The scalesman was not long in coming. It was a different story the other side of the bridge where the half dozen anglers had caught a lot of tiny dace and chublets, best weight only being three pounds, and mostly much less. One of the anglers asked me my weight, and I reckoned ten pounds at least, though in my mind I was hoping for around fourteen. Five minutes later, I had the truth. Fifty-four fish weighing fifteen pounds, eight ounces. I still couldn’t see that beating the anglers on the fliers above the bridge or the one at New Road, Dudsbury. After putting the fish back, I pulled up my waders and waded out into my swim. Though the tide had risen three inches, it still didn’t come above my calves when I stood where I’d been catching my fish. When I got back to the sports club headquarters, the results were drifting in. The first surprise was that top weight above Iford was thirteen pounds odd (including a brace of pound and a half roach) by Terry Hiscock, and there was a ten pound backing weight. Further downstream the weights were poor with, for the second year running, a surprise two-pound perch being weighed. Ex match secretary and five times winner of this event, Chris Albiston reckoned I’d done enough to win but I’ve fished enough matches to know that you’ve got to see ALL of the results before counting your winnings! But he was right. Lionel Vine had 14-14 from the previous week’s winning peg at Dudsbury, and I’d clinched it in those dying minutes. It had been one of the most laid back matches I’ve ever fished yet I had been single-minded throughout. As I drove home I reflected that perhaps you never should judge a swim just by outward appearances… Next: ‘Punch vs Maggots, Bait choices for Winter Roach’ |
