Mark Gillard Wins River Mole Champs.

To try and make my blog site more interesting, I will from time to time be having “Guest” bloggers on here.

I have known and fished with Mark Gillard for over 30 years, since we were both juniors with Leatherhead DAS. He is an excellent angler and excels on small rivers – especially our local River Mole where were both brought up. Having won the River Mole Champs previously, I know how good it is to win the trophy. The following is an account of Mark’s recent victory.

The river was in perfect condition, running off after some heavy rain on the previous Tuesday. I was hoping to draw one of the pegs at the bottom of the North bank 79-90 or possibly either of the two pegs above the stepping stones, but drew peg 62 one out of the basin. Cursing my luck I was about to go home when I was told it shouldn't be in and to re-draw. This time I drew out peg 84, one peg below the “Tank Traps”, a peg that I had won the 2005 Christmas open from. Now I couldn't wait to get there.

When I got there the peg looked perfect and I knew I had a chance as it was one of half a dozen pegs you needed to draw to win. The other plus point was that it was perfect for my favourite method on the river, 2BB waggler feeding hemp and caster, with single caster on a size 20. I prefer to fish caster rather than maggot because of the amount of minnows in the river. I therefore set up just one rod and went for a walk and chat with some other anglers below me.

Arriving back at my peg with 5 minutes to spare, I waded out to my tackle that I'd placed out in the river in the shallow water to get better control. The whistle went and I started feeding slightly downstream at about '1 o'clock' and ran the waggler from just above my feed to about 10 metres past it, about a metre from the far bank, fishing 18" deep in 2 1/2 foot of water, looking to catch chub up in the water. I fed approx 20 casters plus hemp, 2 or three times a cast and started to catch the odd dace and chublet after about the 3rd run down. About 30 minutes had gone and I had a couple of runs through without a bite, which can happen when the chub arrive. Sure enough next cast I was into a good chub that tore of downstream and pulled the hook out. Cursing I rebaited recast and exactly the same thing happened 2-0 to the chub. Next cast I was back into a dace and carried on catching odd dace and chublets for about 10 minutes when I hooked another chub that ran tight along the far bank and snapped the hooklength on a snag 3-0. At this point I got out of the water and made a cup of tea to have a rethink as I couldn't remember the last time I had lost 3 chub, let alone with none in the net. I was obviously on a potential winning peg so decided to go for it tying a size 14 direct to my reel line. I now fished with double caster to mask the hook and 10 minutes later I was in again and this time after a brief scrap netted a good chub of about 4lb. Another couple of dace followed before I hooked another decent chub which I again netted without too much fuss. I then started to 'up' the feed and was soon into another smaller chub. It was now 3-3 and I was feeling a lot better with
around 12lb in the net with about an hour or so gone. Feeding quite heavily now the chub had come right up under my feed and in the next hour I had another 8 chub plus some missed bites and was now on about 35lb good enough to win a lot of matches on the river and to frame in most. The next hour the fish dropped back off the feed slightly but I still caught steadily and added another 5 chub making it 16 for around 45lb.

Just as I was thinking of a really big weight the chub dropped right down the peg to just above the shallows and I caught almost nothing for the next hour. With an hour to go and nothing showing I decided to swap to maggots feeding heavily, as this can sometimes work late on. Ten minutes later another chub was in the net and although I thought the maggot tactic had worked it was my last chub. I finished the match with 17 chub to 4 1/2lb with a few dace and chublets for 50-2-0, winning the match and the prestigious River Mole Championship trophy with about 18lb to spare.