Into the mix I added a few casters with each ball

You may recall that last month I told you about a couple of successful practise sessions I’d had on the Severn at Shrewsbury. After doing so well in practise, I couldn’t wait to get back on the venue on the regular winter matches held there from October onwards. Before I get onto the recent matches I must say I am totally impressed with the work that has been carried out at the venue to make things more comfortable for the anglers fishing there. A few years ago the Shropshire anglers management committee was set up to look after the fishing in the Shropshire area and I know lots of hard work has gone on since that time on a variety of venues to generally improve the fishing in the area. Since last season the work that has been carried out on the Quarry and County ground match lengths is incredible, with every peg now having purpose built fishing stations making things really comfortable for the anglers fishing there. I understand several thousand pounds has been invested to carry out this re-development which now makes an excellent venue even better. Not only are the fishing stations solidly built to withstand the battering of a River Severn flood but also, in addition, there have been trees cut or trimmed to help with casting and difficult snags removed from certain swims. The people involved with the exercise certainly deserve a lot of credit for their efforts which are, I know, appreciated by the anglers fishing there.My first Thursday match of the winter campaign saw me draw peg 36 which is the old peg 35 since the venue was re-pegged. I drew the same peg on the last match of last season and won off it with 19-3-0 of roach and dace so I was fairly happy with the draw. I have, though, always regarded this area as a better place to be from January to March as this is the time of year when the better quality roach and dace move into these swims. The river was carrying about eighteen inches of extra water and pushing through quite hard. Clearly I needed to use fairly big floats to cope with the flow and after much experimentation before the match I settled for two alloy Avon floats, one taking 4AAA and the other 8AAA. Both rigs were similar in shotting with an olivette around three feet from the hook and five number six shot spaced equally in between. For a dropper “shot” I used one of the new Vale Royal micro swivels and joined this with a tucked blood knot to the three pound Maxima main line and a loop in the 0.10mm Carptek hooklength. Hook was a size 18 Mustad wide gape power barbless and both rigs were fished on M.A.P. eighteen foot rods. I’ve spent a lot of time making up rigs on winders for this winter and for heavy Avon rigs like I was using on this day I find three pound Maxima is excellent. For lighter stick float rigs I normally use either two or two and a half pound Maxima. By having rigs made up on winders, I find I can spend a lot more time when I am setting up actually trying out the rigs in the flow and seeing which rig copes best. If I’m having to make up rigs fresh every time, that all important time is used up with putting shot and olivettes onto line. Once the work is completed and a lot of rigs are done I’m convinced that in turn I can catch more fish. The other important point about having sticks, Avons and Bolo rigs on winders, is that you can also change tackle very quickly during a match. This can cover you against tangles, not that I ever get any (I wish), or compensate for changing conditions like the river rising and thus needing a bigger float.I’d got around thirteen to fourteen feet of water in front of me and I set up both rigs at full depth to start with. I didn’t fancy loose feeding the swim at all to start with, as I knew the bait would be pushed a long way downstream if I did, making the catching of small fish very time consuming as I’d have to trot a long way to catch them. My groundbait mix for the day was a new one, a prototype sample mix I’ve been working on with Leeda for a few weeks now which may be available in the near future. The mix is a fairly heavy groundbait to which I added a small amount of damp leam to give it some extra weight to get it down quick in the fast current yet break up quickly once it hit bottom. Into the mix I added a few casters with each ball. After around ten minutes I caught my first fish, a roach of around two ounces and more small roach and dace followed. I had started on the heavier 8AAA float and although this was good for controlling, I was missing a few bites and coming back with damaged bait in between catching fish. I was aware of the flow changing speed from time to time and when it did slow down and run more smoothly, a change to the lighter 4AAA float improved my catch rate. However when the flow picked up again a switch back to the heavier 8AAA float was better. This trend continued for the whole match and although I didn’t get any quality fish I felt I was in the hunt for a prize. Going into the final hour of the match I’d got just over ten pounds of small fish in the net and bank walkers informed me I was probably lying in the top three. The biggest danger, I was informed, was Jim Evans on a peg in the fifties on the Quarry length. I continued to pick up odd fish but not as fast as I had been. Then, with five minutes to go, I struck into something very solid. At first I thought I had snagged up then the “snag” started to move! I had hooked one of the barbel which are occasionally caught in this area, and it was now powering off towards the far bank at a fair rate of knots! I glanced at my watch and I’d literally got just three minutes of the match left. Obviously I’d also got fifteen minutes of extra time to play the fish out after this but to be honest I felt I wouldn’t have enough time. I’ve landed several large barbel at this venue on light gear over the last few years but quite often I’ve needed half an hour or more to subdue the fish on light hooklengths. Now it was a race against the clock on tackle not suited to the job. The all out sounded at four o’clock and by five past the fish was slightly upstream of me about two rod lengths out. I applied as much pressure as I dare on the 0.10mm Carptek hooklength and by seven minutes past four I saw the float for the first time. Problem was the fish was still fourteen feet below the float! The eighteen foot rod was well bent as I continued to apply pressure. Eventually the fish came to the surface and I was shocked to see that I’d hooked it in the dorsal fin! Now barbel in the mouth, on light tackle, are hard enough to get out but foul hooked barbel in the dorsal fin with just minutes left are almost impossible. The fish went down again and I reluctantly gave it line. I was fast running out of time with the watch showing less than five minutes of extra time left. I had no choice but to put as much pressure as I dare back on the fish. I’d reached the stage where if the fish ran off downstream I would definitely run out of time. Amazingly the fish came back up to the surface and it was now I was glad I always set up an extra large landing net for these type of situations. The fish lay on the surface and I thrust the big landing net under it! Twelve minutes into extra time it was mine, and I now knew I’d got enough to win! The fish didn’t have to wait long to get back to his normal haunt as the scalesman was with me a few minutes later. The barbel went 6.5.0 and the roach and dace went 12.5.0, giving me an 18.10.0 total and first place ahead of Jim Evans with just over fourteen pounds of roach.Saturday and I was back at Shrewsbury, this time on peg 24. This swim is very fast and shallow and can produce good weights of dace sometimes. On the Thursday match very little had come from the area but the river was now lower. I had another interesting match. Tackle for the day was a new prototype M.A.P. thirteen foot float rod with a six number six lignum stick set at dead depth. I started the match off feeding maggots very sparingly to try and keep the swim going as long as I could. For two hours I caught steadily. Forty dace in the first hour were followed by thirty five in the second hour. Things then started to slow down and bites were getting less and less. As I was feeding next to nothing I couldn’t really cut back to improve things so I decided to go the other way and introduce more feed to see what happened. I’d got nothing to lose really but couldn’t see it working to be honest. I’d mixed up a big bowl of the new Leeda groundbait I’d won with on the Thursday match but this time I’d left out the leam as the swim was only about a metre deep. Introducing a good sized ball every cast containing a few casters I suddenly started to connect with dace again but this time they were bigger fish than I’d had in the first two hours. I had a very good hour of catching before I started to run short of groundbait. I had no choice but to start loose feeding again but this time I put a lot more maggots in than I had been doing. Going into the last hour I hadn’t caught a single roach but a shoal now appeared and the last hour was frantic with roach between two and four ounces coming regularly. I must have taken around eight pounds of roach in that last hour and no one was more surprised than me. My 20.10.0 was enough for victory again which was really pleasing, but the manner in which I had achieved it was confusing. I’m certain that if I had continued to feed lightly I would not have even framed. Clearly the extra feed I put in during the second half of the match had brought fish into my swim from downstream in the fast current. The situation reminded me of a typical Upper Trent match of a few years ago where I have experienced that sort of match many times. It doesn’t normally work out like that on the Severn but this was a day when the gamble paid off. What was also pleasing was that there were loads of double figure weights all through the match length endorsing my thoughts from my recent practise sessions there.The following Wednesday I managed yet another win, this time on the Mark’s Tackle open at Stourport. I drew peg thirty six on the Newhalls stretch and had a fabulous match on the waggler taking 28.10.0 of mainly roach at depth and off bottom. The lessons I’d learned at Shrewsbury with lots of feed worked again. I loose fed around five pints of bronze maggots on this match and caught steadily all match. Best rig on the day was a 4AAA straight peacock waggler with five number six shots and a number eight shot down. As the fish came off the bottom I changed to just three sixes and an eight down. Double maggot was the best hookbait.Double maggot was the best hookbait again next day on the Shrewsbury match. I drew peg 22 in the spinney and had an enjoyable day catching loads of small dace on the waggler for my fourth Severn win on the bounce with 22.12.0. After the first two casts I never came back without either a fish or a damaged bait, that’s how many fish were there. Most of the fish were small dace in the two ounce bracket although I did get a few better ones together with a few small roach and chublets. Quite honestly there can’t be a better river in the country than the Severn at present. I’m currently on the look out for a new house in the Severn valley area just to be nearer to the river. It’s a love affair thatís never going to go away so I reckon I may as well get closer to it for next season. THE CHANGING FACE OF EARLSWOOD LAKES ————————————

Finally this month I must tell you about a brilliant session I had recently at Earlswood Lakes. I was doing a feature for Angling Times on the Yachting Lake which has just been boosted with all the bream from the Engine House Lake. The Engine House lake is being re-developed by British Waterways into a carp fishery. Some ten thousand pounds of bream have been transferred across to the “Yachter” which is going to be one hell of a venue next summer. Bearing in mind there were already loads of bream in the place and double figures were fairly commonplace I think we could see some massive weights in the future with one hundred pound weights on the cards. On the day we fished, conditions were cold and it rained for most of the day, yet I still managed over forty pounds of bream on the feeder together with some nice roach on the pole. I can’t wait to get back on there next summer but in the meantime it’s all systems go for a bagging up winter on the Severn!!!!