My Return To Match Fishing

Sunday saw my return to match fishing with this to be my first match in 10 years and I must admit that I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I had been contemplating taking in a few matches for some time now and had been looking at the local clubs and their match fixtures trying to find one that I thought might suite me. After a lot of thought I decided that the Deeping St James Angling Club would probably be the one for me as they have what is probably one of my favourite stretches of the Nene along with some other sections of river that they hold club regular matches on throughout the winter months. I made the phone call to the match secretary and after a brief chat I was booked into the match which was also to be round 1 of their Individual league, so my timing was spot on and I entered myself for that as well.
I had looked at the reports from the previous 2 matches to get an idea of how the venue was fishing and who the form anglers were and I even had a few hours fishing it in the week prior to the match.

River Nene Wansford - Mon 14th Nov

After reading a couple of match reports from Deeping St James AC club matches on their water at Wansford and another really tuff session on the Grand Union Canal I decided that it was time to venture onto my local river Nene. I had taken the day off work at short notice and was really excited at the prospect of fishing some running water but must admit to being a little concerned when I saw the river as it was quite clear and was flowing slowly and only averaging 7ft or 8ft things looked dodgy.
I was aware that both of the club matches had been won from peg 4 and so decided to fish at the other end of the stretch on peg 21. I had a narrow boat moored across for me and the shadow it cast on the water was great to see your float against, I decided that I would fish the pole and after plumbing settled on 11.5 metres which was just past the middle.



The view from peg 21

GUC Theddingworth

This Sunday saw us at Theddingworth on the canal, We decided to try a new area that was over 1km from the nearest access. After a brisk walk we arrived at the area we had picked from the map and found that it was well sheltered from the worst of the wind which was a little cool as it was from the North. We both settled for pegs with a far bank feature in the shape of overhanging tree's and went about setting up the gear. I set up 2 top kits with a view to finding 3ft of water and a further line another section over. I found the first line at about 9m but on adding another section I could only find 14 inches of water across and I was not really comfortable with this and so didn't plan to use this line.
I started off with a small ball of liquidised bread at 9m and went in with bread punch on the hook, It must have been about 10 minutes before my first bite which resulted in a Roach of around 1oz. In the next half an hour I caught another 6 similar sized fish in a steady fashion and Graham had  caught a little better and had about 12 fish. Anyway just as we are starting to get things going the wind gets up and manages to blow every leaf that was floating on the surface of the canal into my peg making it all but impossible to get my rig into the water without hooking one of the bloody things. Anyway I decided to up sticks as this was ridiculous and I wasn't keen on my far line either. 

Commercials And The Canal Are The Only Option

The last couple of week or so has seen the sport on the rivers drop off with a couple of light frosts any faint hint of colour has well and truly gone. This was quite evident on Sunday 23rd when we went over to Ten Mile Bank on The Ouse, the river was like tap water and 2 of us didn't have a singe bite and that was from two different locations. The previous weekend had seen the Skimmers go on a feeding frenzy but this time the same pegs were all but dead.
We could really do with a few days of heavy rain to put some colour and flow into the rivers but I guess that we have more chance of winning the national lottery but until then I will have to find other ways to keep myself fishing.