The event, now in it's 6th year brings together 36 anglers from around the country to the sleepy Hampshire town of Salisbury for two nights of mayhem (for most), a bit of fishing and a chance to remember a former fishing pal and raise some money for Cancer Research UK.
Whilst a number of the attendees stop of at Rolfs for a match on their way down to Salisbury on the Friday, I usually travel down to Withy on the Friday morning, arriving at about lunchtime for a sneaky bit of practice and a bit of socialising in the afternoon.
This year was no exception and as me and Ant Sparrow pulled into the Withy car park I could see that a few others had the same idea, as a quick walk around the lake revealed that Plummers, Haisman, Greenie and a few others had already been wetting a line. With my first day due to be on Cottage lake I grabbed my gear and set up on Peg 9 next to Haisman who had a peg like a jacquizi and between catching tench also seemed to foul hooking a number of carp. I intended to fish paste and due to the fizzing that any feed seemed to create, decided to just let the paste coming off the hook feed the peg. After a couple of early carp, I also had the foulhooking problem but found that by fishing another line somewhere else in the peg you could eliminate the problem to some extent. After a few more fish and a walk to chat to a few more arrivals, including my brother Martin who'd driven all the way down from Scotland to join us, the rain arrived and I packed up in the knowledge that not suprisingly Paste would be my main line of attack the following day (infact my only line of attack) !
An "Interesting" night in Salisbury followed which I seem to remember included £21 for 2 Ciders and Chicken and chips in the Indian restaurent and a £30 taxi ride back to the Witherington Farm house (where me and big bruv were staying) at some time after 2am !
The following morning I was up at 6.45am and went for a wander round the lakes as I couldn't sleep. Having seen the pegging and after a couple of laps of Cottage lake I decided that the only pegs I didn't fancy were 6 and 10 as they had pegs either side and nowhere to go.
After a hearty breakfast in the farm house, I ventured over to the Withy clubhouse to find a number of quite tired looking anglers waiting to draw. Every year I help match organisor Nicky the Bricky by doing the draw for my Lake / Section and in the past I have nearly always been rewarded with a decent peg ! This time I was left with Peg 13 and whilst I got much baracking from the rest of the section for having drawn another edge peg (which incidentally s0 did 7 other anglers in the section of 12) local expert Mark Blake did say mine was the one peg he didn't want and if I won the lake from Peg 13 then he would donate £10 to Charity. Now Nicky told me how tight Blakey is so if he was prepared to bet £10 on me not winning then there must have been some truth in his comments ! He actually said that I would catch 2 carp in the first 20 minutes and then sit and watch the rest of the lake catch.
With the same depth down the edge as anywhere else in the peg, I decided to mainly concentrate on the edge and just try out in front occassionally unless I started to catch there.
Blakey's local knowledge wasn't quite right, either that or I wasn't up to the task as I had a carp first put in on paste down the edge but the second one I was supposed to catch in the first twenty minutes never materialised ! Nevertheless, the match started very quietly for everyone on our lake and I've learnt in the past at Withy that it is quite often a waiting game for the carp and you just need to keep doing what you are confident in and they will eventually come. Although the fishing was tough, we were kept entertained by John O'Dribble, Andy T and Sconneee (aka The Back Passage Boys) giving a musical accompanyment courtesy of the copious amounts of alcohol and Indian meal the night before. I really hope that nobody lights a match at Withy after the weekend we had as there will be one hell of an explosion !
Anyway, as the match progressed I started to catch the odd carp and skimmer, as me, Andy T to my right on Peg 14 and Gareth Boycott (Welshmagic) on Peg 7 started to pull away from the rest of the section. As the match neared it's finish, everybody started to catch a few carp including Plippy O'Dribble who started to hook a few on his silvers rig and realised that blue hydro isn't really ideal for Withy carp as one made it's way to the island pulling about 30 yards of elastic from the end of his pole !
As the match ended I thought a slow last hour might have cost me although I thought it could be tight between me, Gareth and Andy T. Starting at Peg 1 Ricky Baxter weighed 39-8-0 and was still leading when we reached Gareth, who tipped 53-8-0 on the scales. Reaching my peg, my silvers net went 13-0-0 and when I placed my carp on the scales, I thought Gareth had pipped me by ounces until they added up the weights and announced ny weight as 54-12-0, just 1-4-0 ahead of Gareth. Andy T then gave us both a scare weighing 50-12-0.
Back at the cabin it was announced that Withybagger had won Sellwood Lake with 86-8-0 and Dotteddown (still half drunk from the night before) had taken Barnmoor with 52-12-0 of skimmers. Having fished the Steve Ramsay event since it started 6 years ago, I was sure that to win it you needed to be in the first 2 in your section on Day 1, so was well pleased to see Pate Bailey in third place on Barnmoor, as he is almost ubeatable on the Snake lake.
Having drunk more alcohol on Friday night than I usually do in a year I decided that for the sake of my health I'd have a quieter night and just pop into Salisbury for something to eat and a few drinks. Which judging by the people I saw, many had the same idea.
I awoke Sunday morning to find that the weather was strangely quiet, it was supposed to be raining heavily with 20 MPH winds but despite a drop of rain overnight, the day looked like being mostly dry, albeit a bit windy. Nicholas has been round testing all the platforms during the week and with a few tubbies fishing with us (mentioning no names) he had to leave a number of pegs out which made some of the pegging look a bit odd. Having fished the section a few times before and looking at the pegging on the draw sheet, I really fancied Pegs 43 and 31 as they had loads more room than the other pegs. Gareth drew Peg 43 which was the peg I really wanted as I'd fished it when practicing for a Fishomania a couple of years ago and emptied it fishing in the edge.
When I drew Peg 31 I thought that we'd both be hard to beat in the section as I had three blank pegs to my left and one to my right coupled to the fact that the wind that had now picked up was coming off my back whilst those round the corner had it blowing right to left which made it hard, if not impossible to fish a long pole.
My original tactics for the day were as follows:-
Two paste rigs to fish either side in the edge - I had to set two up as one side was nearly a foot deeper than the other.
One rig to fish tight across with my secret bait - Mossella Magic bread which I was convinced would work really well.
I also set up a paste rig to fish down the middle as although I've not seen many people catch down the track on the snake, Plummers did last year, so it was worth feeding heavily and just looking over it occasionally.
I started by feeding the middle and edge lines then stuck a piece of Magic bread on the size 10 gamakatsu pellet hook, placed some bread feed into my paste pot and shipped it across. The bread sunk slowly, reached the bottom and the float shot under with a 4lb carp attached to the end - this was going to be easy ! Unfortunately it wasn't as I think I missed the next twenty bites before hooking a 3 ounce rudd. I then switched to the edge where I had a couple of carp and with Sconneee at the next peg (although a long way away) having already caught 5 carp, I was slipping behind. However, I then gave myself a good talking too and set myself a target of 3 carp an hour which would see me finish up with 15 carp at an average of 4lb each. If I could add an extra couple inthe last hour or a few bigger fish, it would push my weight up to 70 or 80lb which I thought would be there or there abouts.
With no more signs in the edge and only small fish bites on bread, I decided to try and fish paste across the far side at 16 metres. Although it wasn't easy, I dropped the paste in and before the float had time to settle properly it had disappeared. This was no small fish and after 5 minutes or so I finally slipped the net under a double figure fish. I then had three more smaller fish in the next three put ins as thoughts of a really big weight entered my head. Unfortunately I then had to change the rig as I got a wind know hear the hook and never go the rig right after that - how many times does that happen where you are catching really well and then swap the rig only for bites to dry up.
I then spent the rest of the match swapping sides down the edge catching a fish from each side until the last 20 minutes when it all went quiet. I actually ran out of green paste with 10 minutes to go so quickly added a load of water to some brown paste I'd brought with me but had dried out over two days, moulded a big wet blob around the hook and cupped it in. Once again the float shot under straight away as another double figure fish made a bid for freedom - although with 0.18 line and red hydro, it had little chance.
I finished the match with 16 carp but with Gareth admitting to 19, I though I was a couple of fish short. With half the section weighed in I was leading with 79-0-0 but then amazingly Gareth plonked 80-4-0 on the scales which meant that after two days fishing, we had both caught exactly the same weight ! Haisman then gave us both a fright with 70lb before I had to weigh McPikey in who had apparently gone to change his clothing having made the decision to ignore the use of a plummet to check the depth on his inside line and plummed up with himself !
Gareth and I both then nipped off to see the third section weigh in to see if Dotteddown had done enough to win . Unfortuantely for us both he'd weighed 101lb from the inner snake, and although Pete Bailey had shown how good he is on the snake by weighing a superb 175lb, Jamie's weight was enough to give him 2 points to add to the one he had on saturday and tied with me and Gareth but beat us both on weight.
Whilst I was gutted not to have won, we then headed back to the clubhouse where the raffle, a number of donations and some interesting fines boosted the charity donation to over £1,800 - a really superb effort.
So, once again I 'd had a superb weekend at Withy with a really good bunch of blokes and caught a few fish, what more could you want. I'm already looking forward to next year
Tomorrow sees me visit Spring Lake at Framfield for the first time for ages, so pop back here early next week to see how it fished.
