30 in the morning

Reports had been coming in that the fishery was producing amazing fishing, so it was with a certain apprehension that John and I left Bristol at 4.30 in the morning! I believe that I explained last week that generally competition organisers don’t want mass slaughter of fish, as this is likely to provoke criticism, which at the present time is not what is needed.We made good time as the M25 hadn’t yet woken up and soon we were registering the 65 anglers and distributing the “goodie-bags”. Most of the fishermen had fished the Hanningfield “Masters” event the day before and confirmed the fact that a lot of fish were likely to be caught. The match started at 10.00, though John and I had to play around with the draw as five of the original field of 70 had failed to turn up. Amazingly, at least three of those had paid the fees in full!Within ten minutes of the starting Claxton we knew that a great deal of fish would be caught – the rods were bending almost immediately just off the pier that locals call “The Mole”. In the next hour as we had breakfast with Scott and Alistair, there was barely a moment when there wasn’t at least one rod bent over as an angler played a fish.The competitors were allowed to return to the harbour if both fishermen in the boat had caught their limit – which the manager of the fishery kindly raised to 12 fish per head for this event – and boats started to come in from about 12.45 onwards. Word soon got round that the fishing was incredible, especially around the inflow, and that the fish were really fit and hard fighting. Sinking lines were almost exclusively the order of the day, with mini lures and boobies the successful flies.I sorted out one or two things on the computers and arranged all the weighing-in requirements, which left us time to go and do some fly checks. As luck would have it I had my rod with me!! On this occasion though John hadn’t brought his. We checked a few flies, found all to be inside the “legal” size, and then decided to have a few casts. I always take my five-weight rod and a floating line. I opted for a couple of superglues and a big claret dry on the top dropper. I had four casts then John did the same. In my four I had three takes, all of which I managed to miss! John caught two fish in his turn and missed takes on both other casts. I had one more cast and caught a 3 lb rainbow; John then had another cast with which he too had a good rainbow. Floating lines would have worked just as well as sinkers it seemed! That really was enough for us and, with so many fish to weigh in, we decided to head back and begin weighing fish a little earlier than usual. This was indeed a sensible decision as it meant we were able to have the prizes awarded by seven o’clock and chat with the winners and unlucky losers.Now for the results: It was pretty obvious after a few weighings that this was going to be an incredible result and one that would almost certainly be decided by the “time bonus” system. Well ahead of the field was John Hardy who had twelve trout which, with bonus added, weighed in at an amazing 61lbs 5oz. Second was Robert Sherriff who amassed 56lbs 8oz; third was Andrew Green with 54lbs 5oz; fourth Simon King with 52lbs 5oz and finally Clive Morgan with 52lbs 4oz. Frank Basnet caught the largest fish and it weighed 6lbs 4oz to earn him a spot in the final. The 65 anglers caught a total of 674 trout – a result that we have never experienced before. The anglers seemed to have enjoyed themselves and a great cheer went up for the fisheries staff. Personally I am not at all sure that results like this are going to do our sport good in the long run! I know I keep harping on about massive fish kills in competitions, but surely there must be a better way. After the weigh-in on Tuesday I really don’t think that we could state that the BEST angler in the field was in the top five places – or even in the top fifty! The problem is trying to find a way of working out who the best angler is! We are as a nation getting better and better at catching “stockies” – of that there is no doubt, but I believe that the World Championships showed that we are not so good at catching fish that are more naturalised.On a completely different tack, it is great to see so many anglers new to competition fishing. John reckons that over 700 of those anglers who have entered the competition have never fished a comp before! That has to be good for the sport. I had a long chat after the match with one such fisherman – Jim Johnson. In his first ever competition he caught 12 trout for 41lbs 2oz. That was the fifth heaviest bag of fish caught! Yet, because he didn’t catch the last of the twelve until late in the day, he ended up coming only 23rd! However he said that he thoroughly enjoyed his day and is really looking forward to a crack at it again next year. I think that it is anglers like that who make it all worthwhile.I am off to Rutland early tomorrow morning. I will report on that venue next week.Tight lines,

Martin Cottis