key event that could be used to give ‘up

I travelled there with my Melksham friend Paul Crook who had never fished the reservoir before, so I filled him in by telling him how small dry flies have generally been the order of the day when I have fished there in the past.The Major Clubs competition is the brainchild of my old college lecturer Peter Firth. He decided that there was a need for a low-key event that could be used to give ‘up-and-coming’ match anglers the chance to compete against already well-established competitors. Peter’s formula was that all clubs with a large membership (I believe it was 100 plus members) were encouraged to enter this series of matches held on waters around the country. No angler was originally allowed to fish in more than either two or three of the six match series. This meant that to fulfil a club’s obligation, less experienced match anglers are required to fish. Each year I have supported my club and fished on one or two occasions. Somehow I have always managed to get in for the Pitsford event and there I have generally bumped into the same bunch of guys from Bewl Water. We have usually had good fishing, though I remember one year of blazing hot weather when DI-7 and lures were the order of the day and I managed to catch nowt! Every other trip has been good and I have managed to attain the limit on dries.This trip saw me teamed up with Andy Packham of Bewl. We have fished together a couple of times and enjoyed good sport. Andy has in fact stopped fishing competitions this year and was reluctant to turn out for this event. He hadn’t had much sleep the night before, due to a party going on next door to him in Kent, and he was hoping to catch a few fish quickly and have a snooze in the boat. Things didn’t work out quite like that though!Andy had a fish second or third cast using a slime line and nymphs. A great start, and evidence that Bewl’s practice the day before was going to pay dividends. We fished a long drift out and, as I tried starting the motor whilst keeping a close eye on my dries, I saw a fish turn on my middle dropper and soon had a fish on the way to the net. Unfortunately it came off! Not to worry: this was the first drift of the day. Next drift I had a good fish of about 2 1/2lbs. That was about it for both Peter and I for a few hours!All the other boats had left us and gone to the dam area so, inevitably, we had to go to check things out. Most people had just one or two fish, but there were a couple with five and six fish. Slime lines and/or blobs or boobies were the order of the day. Neither Andy nor I fancied fishing in the pack, so we did one drift right across and then headed back down the lake. Andy caught one whilst booby fishing, but had little other response. When we returned to our starting area I rose a fish, then caught one, and conditions generally were looking better. Andy caught one on a cul out in the middle; I had another close to that area. I spotted a trout rise so I motored over to it and Andy covered the fish. He had two different trout come to his flies, but did manage to catch one of them. That was at about four o’clock and it was the end of our sport. It was strange really as conditions were favourable for fish to be up. I spoke with several of the successful fishermen and they suggested that the trout were in the top couple of feet of water, yet were not prepared to feed there as they usually do at this venue. My team fared poorly and came in bottom. We needed to beat Grafham to try to avoid relegation to the second division. The one remaining match is on Grafham in October, so it is likely that we will drop down a division. This is all such a long way from the heady days when Bristol teams were the cream of the match fishing world. What has changed in the intervening years? One thing is absolutely certain and that is that now we are all chasing around for recently stocked fish. Surely that is not new I hear you say! To a certain extent you may be right, but Bristol teams are used to fishing for trout that quickly start feeding on natural flies and nymphs and do not respond to lures, unlike fish in waters such as Rutland and Grafham. The slowly fished buzzer or static dry generally do far better than a high speed booby or blob. Maybe we have become a bit lazy about things too: when we were at our best we would think nothing of spending every other weekend practising on reservoirs around the country perfecting our technique. There is also an element of finding enjoyable ways of fishing and sticking to those methods! I for one am very guilty of that crime for which I make no apology! To be more honest I should probably also add that, as we are all getting that bit older, we are not quite so motivated to charge about and change tactics as often. All in all one has to decide on what one wants from a day out. I enjoyed my day with Andy, though I will admit to feeling that I should have caught more. Andy is fed up with the whole scene and won’t bother with another match. That is sad for he is a good character to have on the match scene.Oh well, after all that theorising, back to reality. I have a couple of trips to Chew this week and I am off to Wales at the weekend.Tight lines,

Martin Cottis