I think this or at least part of it appeared in Southern Angler a while ago, however as some poor northerners wont have see it then I thought I’d put it on here !
Every year about 40 anglers from the Total Fishing.com website gather at Witherington Farm near Salisbury to remember one of their friends, raise money for charity and generally have a great time. For some, the weekend is the highlight of their fishing year as anglers converge from all parts of the country (and Guernsey) to attend - and long may it continue.
The following is a report of our last trip.
To say that I was looking forward to the "Steve Ramsay Memorial" weekend would have been somewhat of an understatement ! Everything about the weekend, from the welcome you get from everyone at the fishery, to Nicky Lund and his Julies organisation, the fishing and the craic, is absolutely spot on - except for the price of rooms in the Kings Head public house in Salisbury !
With the Trophy being fished for over two days (Saturday and Sunday), a large number of competitors were also going down to Salisbury on the Friday for a bit of sneaky practice and a drink or ten on the Friday evening.
My travelling companion for the weekend was Antony Sparrow (thanks for the lift Ant) who was as excited about the weekend as me and duly arrived at my house at 8.30am on the Friday morning. Having loaded the gear we were on our way for the 100 mile drive to Withy, broken only by a stop for breakfast at the Little Thief. Unfortunately the special offers they were running had now expired so the two breakfasts left me nearly £20 lighter than when I arrived.
Arriving at Withy at about 11am, we did a quick tour of the lakes to see who was about but with only a couple of pegs remaining on Cottage Lake where we were due to fish the next day, we made a quick return to the car to grab our gear. Ant chose peg 2 and I settled into peg 9 as it was within shouting distance of Nicky Lund incase I needed to give him some abuse. Following some fish deaths last year, I had heard that there were not so many carp in the lake and the best method may well involve fishing shallow for roach and rudd (Andy May had 70lb of them in the Fishomania there).
However, it sounded like hard work to me and if I could catch fishing paste and stand a chance of winning then that is how I’d fish. Having plumbed up, I found the same depth in the edge as at 6 metres so only set up one rig - my usual Maver Paste float to 0.18 line and a size 10 Gamakatsu Pellet hook. I was pleasantly surprised to find that as soon as I fed a few pellets, the fish (probably skimmers) started to “blow” in the peg (I love it when they start doing this when I am fishing paste cos it usually means you are going to catch a few fish) and after 7 casts I had about 12lb in the net – 3 big skimmers, 2 tench and a carp. This continued for the rest of the afternoon and I finished up with 18 tench, 3 carp and a load of skimmers. The only down side was that I made the mistake of letting Gary Haisman have a go with my gear and he managed to snap a top two when trying to “Swing in” a 6lb carp ! Ant managed to sort out how to catch great big roach on pellet and we were both looking forward to a Pellet V Paste battle the next day.
I won't cover the evening’s festivities here, However, it is suffice to say that everyone had a great evening in Salisbury, Mr Haisman left all his pants at home and for some reason Dave Speller took a nice pair of his wife’s undies with him !
Following a smaller than usual breakfast after a drink or two too many the night before, I was ready to go and at the draw Julie drew me Peg 11 which was only two away from where I’d practiced the day before and with a blank peg to my right. I set up the same rig I’d practiced with, a “lighter” rig with 0.16 line and also a rig to fish infront of the platform to my right. After half an hour, I’d not had a bite and was just beginning to think that I had made the wrong decision regarding baits and methods when I had a carp of about 3 pound. By constantly trickling in a few pellets with my paste, I managed to keep catching in front of me most of the match and also had a few bigger carp down the edge. With an hour to go bites started to slow and I decided to spend the last hour fishing the margins where I thought I’d bag up. However, this wasn’t the case as I only had one more carp there. The match finished at 4.30 and when I weighed in 85-8-0 (20lb of skimmers and the rest carp), I though it might actually be enough to win the match, not just the lake. Sure enough, Pete Bailey had fished Peg 15 on Sellwood Lake with a 62 metre pole (well it looked that long) and finished second with 84-12-0 with England Youth International Will Bonney winning Barnmoor Lake with 51-0-0.
Saturday night was a repeat of Friday and I don’t think I have laughed as much for ages – infact the following morning my sides were aching from laughing so much – not only did we have a quiz that some took a little bit more seriously than others, but the seven Guinness drinkers managed to down 75 pints in 3 hours and we also raised £350 for charity in Bar 44 in Salisbury. Well done chaps.
Day 2 saw us all on the Snake Lake, some on the inner snake and some on the outer, depending on which lake you were on the previous day. This time the lovely Julie drew me Peg 72 on the inner snake which I really fancied as it was an end peg (although to be fair, the pegs were so well spaced that nearly everyone had an end peg).
Having caught well in the edge last year, I decided to fish the same way this year, with swims right and left and one rig for right across. My rigs were red hydro with 4x14 maver paste floats but this time to 0.16 line and a size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook. The long pole rig had black hydro through the top as I thought red would be too much.
I started off fishing the edge swims but after 2 hours I’d only had a roach, a skimmer and a vegetarian perch to show for my efforts as my hopes of winning the title looked like going out of the window. I wasn’t sure if it was that there weren’t any carp on the inside or if it was just that they didn’t want my paste, so I put a paste rig on my long pole and pushed it across to the far bank. Now, fishing paste at 14.5 metres isn’t easy at the best of times but fishing it with a howling side wind when you have to fish a very short line to keep it out of the bankside vegetation is nigh on impossible. However, try it I did and within seconds of the paste hitting the bottom, I’d hooked my first carp. I think I then had six in six casts before the wind got up again and I managed to lose my rig on a piece of overhanging vegetation. I then had a couple of bigger fish in the edge to my right, before tackling up another far side rig and adding a few more fish from there. With an hour to go I lost another rig across and decided to concentrate in the edge to my right – this turned out to be a good decision as after adding a three or four 3lb fish, I then had two eight pounders in the final 15 minutes. So, from looking like a nightmare match after 2 hours, I redeemed myself in the second half of the match and weighed in a total of 70-8-0 for another section win. Pete Bailey had again won his section as had Young Will, so with 3 of us tied on 2 points, it was all down to the total weights which were as follows.
Pete Bailey 138-12-0 Will Bonney 145-12-0 Dave P 155-14-0
So, after losing out to Pete last year on weight, I had turned the tables this year and am now the proud holder of the Steve Ramsay Memorial Trophy for another 12 months.
All in all, I’d had a brilliant weekend, the organisation (as always) was superb, the fishing suited the way I like to fish and the company was absolutely first class. I can’t wait for next year and have already booked my hotel room – as have many others !
Oh yes, I nearly forgot, Ant had organised the raffle and we raised £1,030 for the Cancer Research Fund. So, a big thank you must go to everyone who helped raise such a large amount of money – Thanks Chaps, I hope to see you all again next year.
The following is a report of our last trip.
To say that I was looking forward to the "Steve Ramsay Memorial" weekend would have been somewhat of an understatement ! Everything about the weekend, from the welcome you get from everyone at the fishery, to Nicky Lund and his Julies organisation, the fishing and the craic, is absolutely spot on - except for the price of rooms in the Kings Head public house in Salisbury !
With the Trophy being fished for over two days (Saturday and Sunday), a large number of competitors were also going down to Salisbury on the Friday for a bit of sneaky practice and a drink or ten on the Friday evening.
My travelling companion for the weekend was Antony Sparrow (thanks for the lift Ant) who was as excited about the weekend as me and duly arrived at my house at 8.30am on the Friday morning. Having loaded the gear we were on our way for the 100 mile drive to Withy, broken only by a stop for breakfast at the Little Thief. Unfortunately the special offers they were running had now expired so the two breakfasts left me nearly £20 lighter than when I arrived.
Arriving at Withy at about 11am, we did a quick tour of the lakes to see who was about but with only a couple of pegs remaining on Cottage Lake where we were due to fish the next day, we made a quick return to the car to grab our gear. Ant chose peg 2 and I settled into peg 9 as it was within shouting distance of Nicky Lund incase I needed to give him some abuse. Following some fish deaths last year, I had heard that there were not so many carp in the lake and the best method may well involve fishing shallow for roach and rudd (Andy May had 70lb of them in the Fishomania there).
However, it sounded like hard work to me and if I could catch fishing paste and stand a chance of winning then that is how I’d fish. Having plumbed up, I found the same depth in the edge as at 6 metres so only set up one rig - my usual Maver Paste float to 0.18 line and a size 10 Gamakatsu Pellet hook. I was pleasantly surprised to find that as soon as I fed a few pellets, the fish (probably skimmers) started to “blow” in the peg (I love it when they start doing this when I am fishing paste cos it usually means you are going to catch a few fish) and after 7 casts I had about 12lb in the net – 3 big skimmers, 2 tench and a carp. This continued for the rest of the afternoon and I finished up with 18 tench, 3 carp and a load of skimmers. The only down side was that I made the mistake of letting Gary Haisman have a go with my gear and he managed to snap a top two when trying to “Swing in” a 6lb carp ! Ant managed to sort out how to catch great big roach on pellet and we were both looking forward to a Pellet V Paste battle the next day.
I won't cover the evening’s festivities here, However, it is suffice to say that everyone had a great evening in Salisbury, Mr Haisman left all his pants at home and for some reason Dave Speller took a nice pair of his wife’s undies with him !
Following a smaller than usual breakfast after a drink or two too many the night before, I was ready to go and at the draw Julie drew me Peg 11 which was only two away from where I’d practiced the day before and with a blank peg to my right. I set up the same rig I’d practiced with, a “lighter” rig with 0.16 line and also a rig to fish infront of the platform to my right. After half an hour, I’d not had a bite and was just beginning to think that I had made the wrong decision regarding baits and methods when I had a carp of about 3 pound. By constantly trickling in a few pellets with my paste, I managed to keep catching in front of me most of the match and also had a few bigger carp down the edge. With an hour to go bites started to slow and I decided to spend the last hour fishing the margins where I thought I’d bag up. However, this wasn’t the case as I only had one more carp there. The match finished at 4.30 and when I weighed in 85-8-0 (20lb of skimmers and the rest carp), I though it might actually be enough to win the match, not just the lake. Sure enough, Pete Bailey had fished Peg 15 on Sellwood Lake with a 62 metre pole (well it looked that long) and finished second with 84-12-0 with England Youth International Will Bonney winning Barnmoor Lake with 51-0-0.
Saturday night was a repeat of Friday and I don’t think I have laughed as much for ages – infact the following morning my sides were aching from laughing so much – not only did we have a quiz that some took a little bit more seriously than others, but the seven Guinness drinkers managed to down 75 pints in 3 hours and we also raised £350 for charity in Bar 44 in Salisbury. Well done chaps.
Day 2 saw us all on the Snake Lake, some on the inner snake and some on the outer, depending on which lake you were on the previous day. This time the lovely Julie drew me Peg 72 on the inner snake which I really fancied as it was an end peg (although to be fair, the pegs were so well spaced that nearly everyone had an end peg).
Having caught well in the edge last year, I decided to fish the same way this year, with swims right and left and one rig for right across. My rigs were red hydro with 4x14 maver paste floats but this time to 0.16 line and a size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook. The long pole rig had black hydro through the top as I thought red would be too much.
I started off fishing the edge swims but after 2 hours I’d only had a roach, a skimmer and a vegetarian perch to show for my efforts as my hopes of winning the title looked like going out of the window. I wasn’t sure if it was that there weren’t any carp on the inside or if it was just that they didn’t want my paste, so I put a paste rig on my long pole and pushed it across to the far bank. Now, fishing paste at 14.5 metres isn’t easy at the best of times but fishing it with a howling side wind when you have to fish a very short line to keep it out of the bankside vegetation is nigh on impossible. However, try it I did and within seconds of the paste hitting the bottom, I’d hooked my first carp. I think I then had six in six casts before the wind got up again and I managed to lose my rig on a piece of overhanging vegetation. I then had a couple of bigger fish in the edge to my right, before tackling up another far side rig and adding a few more fish from there. With an hour to go I lost another rig across and decided to concentrate in the edge to my right – this turned out to be a good decision as after adding a three or four 3lb fish, I then had two eight pounders in the final 15 minutes. So, from looking like a nightmare match after 2 hours, I redeemed myself in the second half of the match and weighed in a total of 70-8-0 for another section win. Pete Bailey had again won his section as had Young Will, so with 3 of us tied on 2 points, it was all down to the total weights which were as follows.
Pete Bailey 138-12-0 Will Bonney 145-12-0 Dave P 155-14-0
So, after losing out to Pete last year on weight, I had turned the tables this year and am now the proud holder of the Steve Ramsay Memorial Trophy for another 12 months.
All in all, I’d had a brilliant weekend, the organisation (as always) was superb, the fishing suited the way I like to fish and the company was absolutely first class. I can’t wait for next year and have already booked my hotel room – as have many others !
Oh yes, I nearly forgot, Ant had organised the raffle and we raised £1,030 for the Cancer Research Fund. So, a big thank you must go to everyone who helped raise such a large amount of money – Thanks Chaps, I hope to see you all again next year.
