I had booked in for the Total Fishing.com (South) Xmas match at Wood Lane Farm near Iver on the Friday after xmas but to be honest, whilst I was looking forward to seeing some of the TF chaps again, I wasn’t really looking forward to the fishing as it wasn’t really “My Style” and my gear was in a bit of a state, having had no time to sort it out or tie any rigs over Xmas. Anyway, the day started badly as after Hathers picked me up at 7am, we reached the general area of the fishery and then drove about desperately trying to find somewhere to get a decent breakfast. Being in the middle of the countries “Xmas Break”, this was not an easy task and I finally ended up with an egg and tomato sandwich and a bottle of apple juice from a local garage – not exactly my idea of a perfect breakfast !
Arriving at the fishery, the weather would have been better for kite flying rather than fishing as the wind was howling across the lake, and with the match being “Pole Only”, it looked like I was going to have a wrestling match with my pole !
I drew Peg 5 between GOT Baits ace Gary Thorpe (who won last years match with 180lb) and Kev Holmes, both of whom I’d not met before – but they both seemed like nice chaps – as most are on the TF website. I set up a rig to fish at 10 metres in about 10 foot of water and a rig to fish “Deep Shallow” at about 5 foot, but to be honest my enthusiasm levels were rather low and if I wasn’t catching, I was destined to spend a lot of time walking. The waves on the lake made bite detection difficult and after 20 minutes with a red maggot on the hook, a random lift of the pole revealed a 6 ounce skimmer was on the end. I know it was 6 ounces cos when I weighed in four and a half hours later, it was the only fish I had ! With the pegging being so tight and the water towing quite a bit, I wasn’t convinced that anything I fed actually stayed in my peg and with a couple of hours gone and me losing the wrestling match with my pole by one fall and a submission, I decided that I was unlikely to finish in the frame so I might as well go and have a chat.
As I sat in Squeeky’s peg across the lake, chatting with him, Rigman and Dick Doherty (Berkswolf) – yes, all the TFers have “Silly” names, I could see Gary Thorpe was catching a few skimmers and Clive (Slut) who had turned up an hour late and drawn in the windiest peg on the lake was also putting a few fish in the net but the majority of others were struggling – even the great Keith Arthur was still fishless !
Having volunteered to run a raffle for with the proceeds going to Les Webber’s Angling Projects team I then retired to the car to sort out the tickets and on the whistle grabbed the scales with “Match Organiser” Happy Dangler (Ricky Baxter).
Hathers was gutted that having sat there for 5 hours for a potentially section winning 1 ounce perch, Micky Davies at the next peg nicked a couple of late skimmers to win the section with 1-8-0 ………………..and Hathers £1 ! Clive managed 10-6-0 which was fortunate as it would mean he was going to “frame” and could therefore spend some of his winnings on a new landing net to replace the one with the large hole in it that his fish kept dropping through !
As expected Gary Thorpe (pictured above with a normal net of fish for him) put a winning weight of 12-12-0 on the scales – 3 carp and about 9 skimmers to retain the title he won last year.
Result
Gary Thorpe 12-12-0
Clive Sluter 10-6-0
Dick Doherty 5-14-0
The full set of results will appear here as soon as I can get hold of them – including details of those not good enough to catch !!!!!!
Thanks to everyone who bought raffle tickets and brought prizes, we raised the sum of £70 which is now winging it’s way to Les Webber for his Angling Projects Team
Arriving at the fishery, the weather would have been better for kite flying rather than fishing as the wind was howling across the lake, and with the match being “Pole Only”, it looked like I was going to have a wrestling match with my pole !
I drew Peg 5 between GOT Baits ace Gary Thorpe (who won last years match with 180lb) and Kev Holmes, both of whom I’d not met before – but they both seemed like nice chaps – as most are on the TF website. I set up a rig to fish at 10 metres in about 10 foot of water and a rig to fish “Deep Shallow” at about 5 foot, but to be honest my enthusiasm levels were rather low and if I wasn’t catching, I was destined to spend a lot of time walking. The waves on the lake made bite detection difficult and after 20 minutes with a red maggot on the hook, a random lift of the pole revealed a 6 ounce skimmer was on the end. I know it was 6 ounces cos when I weighed in four and a half hours later, it was the only fish I had ! With the pegging being so tight and the water towing quite a bit, I wasn’t convinced that anything I fed actually stayed in my peg and with a couple of hours gone and me losing the wrestling match with my pole by one fall and a submission, I decided that I was unlikely to finish in the frame so I might as well go and have a chat.
As I sat in Squeeky’s peg across the lake, chatting with him, Rigman and Dick Doherty (Berkswolf) – yes, all the TFers have “Silly” names, I could see Gary Thorpe was catching a few skimmers and Clive (Slut) who had turned up an hour late and drawn in the windiest peg on the lake was also putting a few fish in the net but the majority of others were struggling – even the great Keith Arthur was still fishless !
Having volunteered to run a raffle for with the proceeds going to Les Webber’s Angling Projects team I then retired to the car to sort out the tickets and on the whistle grabbed the scales with “Match Organiser” Happy Dangler (Ricky Baxter).
Hathers was gutted that having sat there for 5 hours for a potentially section winning 1 ounce perch, Micky Davies at the next peg nicked a couple of late skimmers to win the section with 1-8-0 ………………..and Hathers £1 ! Clive managed 10-6-0 which was fortunate as it would mean he was going to “frame” and could therefore spend some of his winnings on a new landing net to replace the one with the large hole in it that his fish kept dropping through !
As expected Gary Thorpe (pictured above with a normal net of fish for him) put a winning weight of 12-12-0 on the scales – 3 carp and about 9 skimmers to retain the title he won last year.
Result
Gary Thorpe 12-12-0
Clive Sluter 10-6-0
Dick Doherty 5-14-0
The full set of results will appear here as soon as I can get hold of them – including details of those not good enough to catch !!!!!!
Thanks to everyone who bought raffle tickets and brought prizes, we raised the sum of £70 which is now winging it’s way to Les Webber for his Angling Projects Team
