Mark Wintle, an angler for 36 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 column.
Wintle’s World of Angling – Memorable Matches Part 6 Winter League Woes
WINTER LEAGUES! LOVE ’em or hate ’em? Many match anglers have dipped their toe in the world of winter league fishing at some time or other and many have fished them for decades. Traditionally they have represented some of the toughest match fishing around, truly a means of sorting the men from the boys. And although I’ve suffered with the best of them I wouldn’t have missed the experience which certainly raised my game and that of my fellow team mates.
Winter Leagues are not all struggling; there are plenty of glory days too, and although the format has changed over the years the concept of sizeable matches in autumn and winter is still around after more than fifty years. Originally conceived to give Angling Times something to report once the big traditional Fenland matches stopped after September back in 1954 their popularity grew until at one time there were more than forty leagues of ten teams or more of 12 anglers in the early nineties. Angling Times has for years tried to get everyone to call it the “Angling Times League” but us incorrigible anglers persist in calling it the “Winter League”.
Over the years I’ve fished for four teams, been in the runners-up team at least six times yet only in a league winning team once that got into the semi final. Individually I’ve won the league once and been in the top ten around half a dozen times. Most times when I’ve done well it’s been a case of five good results and one blow-out, something that’s hard to prevent when a good sprinkling of matches had as many as 50% blanks!
True Winter League Virgins
My own involvement started with Wareham back in 1979 in the original Avon Valley League. We were true WL virgins; convinced of our ability yet having led a sheltered life, and unready for the leap in standards when we came up against two Farnborough and two Bath teams on unfamiliar territory. I had a tough time at first; my first WL was saved with a single minnow in the last ten minutes, not that it got many points. By the end of that first season the whole team was starting to shape up. Just how tough WL fishing could be was illustrated by a match on a cold, clear River Thames at Caversham; 56 anglers in a line and I had second best weight with five ounces; four ruffe and a perch caught float fishing at 55 yards out (68 turns of the reel!).
Some better anglers joined the team the second year and we did well enough to rattle Farnborough although they gradually pulled away. I grabbed the league title courtesy of a minnow in the final match but the results that put me there in the position to win it had been solid enough. For reasons of luck we kept drawing next to Farnborough match after match. After the third consecutive hammering at the next peg their spies watched me through the fourth match as I quadrupled their man’s weight on a high, pacy Thames. Included in the watchers was a very young Will Raison!
One penny had dropped for me though. It was far from all scratching. Although Winter Leagues were team events it was vital to realise that getting the best out of the swim was far better than just playing very safe and fishing defensively. Yet many anglers did that. Regardless of draw it was scratch, scratch, scratch. To do much better meant that my techniques needed to be much better. That meant a lot of practice on a very wide variety of venues, trying out many techniques. As early as 1980 I’d realised that although fishing a stick float or waggler can be wonderfully satisfying they weren’t always the deadliest of methods. Even back then I could see that pole fishing and legering techniques were better despite finding it harder to master them.
Half of our team clung to the scratching techniques which occasionally caused friction in the team. My mate Phil was captain. In private he told me to just do what I did best and fish to the best of my ability – most of the rest of the team were given strict instructions on what to do. There were others in the same boat as me. How we helped the team best was in spreading knowledge of the venues, and formulating the ‘safe’ tactics.
It all came to head one day though when one of the scratchers complained to Phil that I was fishing for myself rather than following team tactics – possibly because I’d won two matches in the series and had good results in others. Phil gently (more likely bit his head off) pointed out that when the complainer could come back with results like that he’d start listening but until then he could buck his ideas up.
A frozen Kennet & Avon Canal
Despite its successes the Wareham team fell apart in the mid eighties. Its final match was on a frozen Kennet & Avon Canal at Pewsey. After a two hour debate by the team captains on whether to fish, we finally got ice breaking (an inch of ice). With an hour to go my section was blanking but some magical trigger finally provoked the fish into feeding, and a late run of fish on bloodworm got me third in the match with eleven ounces. I never did figure out what happened that day because the whole section started to catch in the last 40 minutes.
For me the late eighties were largely WL free. I fished for Christchurch in 1989 but they could not regain their previously dominant position, a mantle that remained with Pewsey for more than a decade.
Then Team Castle was formed
The next season Team Castle, loosely based around Warminster, was formed. This meant new WL venues on the Gloucester Canal, Bristol Avon and Kennet and Avon Canal. Having already won our division of the Sundridge League (later Drennan) we got off to a flying start on the K&A at Devizes but not only winning the match as a team but breaking the league points record our first time out.
Team Castle 1991. Mark is top row, third from left
The next match was certainly memorable; on warm day at Chippenham, with the Avon low and slow, I kept myself busy catching small roach and perch on fine line waggler tactics. A bonus tench of 4lbs on a 22 hook and 12oz tested my nerves and tackle. With around 7lbs in the net I thought I ought to be in with a chance of a section win. We had no bank runners and so apart from the anglers in sight who appeared to be struggling I had little idea of what else was happening. At the end I soon found out. Two pegs were split from the rest and on one of them Chris Jurevicious had 25 bream for 95lb. At least I got second in the section! Despite some tough matches later in the series we clung on to win the league and I was finally fishing my first semi final.
In the New Year, the Nene above Peterborough was out of sorts for weeks, heavy rain and snow melt made it coloured and high. A couple of the team members went and practiced but struggled badly. A week of fine weather prior to the match when practice was barred settled the river to just about perfect for the day, and we lined up against 20 other teams including the cream of the South.
We drew next to mighty Dorking
I was puzzled that some in the team rated our chances so much that they placed money with Denis Salmon the bookie, even more so when we drew next to one of the mightiest teams of all time, Dorking. (Dorking are one of the holy trinity; Dorking, Essex County, Barnsley).
Whatever the river had held back the previous weeks in terms of sport came good that day. I drew in the jungle near Orton. Jungle it certainly was because my peg was through a tunnel in a bramble bush. It was a perfect stick float peg and whilst those around tried to tempt the unwilling chub I stuck to catching roach. It was fishing at its best with roach to a pound and plenty of them.
After the final whistle and awaiting the scales I chatted with Dorking angler Robin Morley. He asked me if I’d struggled as he hadn’t seen me catch a fish all day but the truth was that I’d kept catching quietly, hidden by the brambles. The scales showed how well the river had fished. 14lb won the section, I had 12-15 for third in section and Robin had 11lb. He could hardly believe it, not that he needed to worry for I was the only Castle man to beat Dorking off the next peg. To give some idea of how consistently the river fished it took 10lbs to make the first 12 in my section, and there were only two weights under 8lb. That was the day that Steve Gardener annihilated the opposition with 42lbs, doubling the second weight, our man trailing with 11lbs off the next peg. We ended up 19th whilst Dorking, not surprisingly, won. There were 63 double figure weights that day!
We narrowly failed to repeat our success over the following three seasons, finishing second twice and third once. On one match on the Brue near Glastonbury we had perhaps our unluckiest match. Needing to win the match to take the league the team had the full measure of the venue for this January match fished in cloudy conditions. The river was clear and normal winter level. Some areas were peggy, but others more consistent. I drew one of the consistent areas, laying on caster across the narrow river to get three tench plus a bream of 8-10 for 20-15. That would normally be enough to win, but our team dominated the frame that day and I was fourth in the team and overall (the winner had 43lb!) as we took the first four places plus sixth as well. But in the bad areas we struggled. The tragedy was that one team member had one of the then new monofilament nets with about a pound in it. A pike attacked it the net laddered and the catch escaped. We finished third on the day with 94 points, 94.5 was second and 95 won. A single point from that escaped catch and we would have won the league…
