Ravely Drain, Round 6 Deeping Individual League

This Sunday saw the final round of the individual league fished on Ravely drain and it also included the second leg of the Newman Trophy which is an inter club match fished against yaxley.
After my win last week I was happy to be heading the league going into the final round although I still thought that it was going to be a tall order having not seen the venue for many years.
I started my match preparation by popping over to the venue midweek and having a look and a walk along the match length along with reading any recent match reports. One of these was written by Bob Nudd from a recent match where he came second with 549 fish, now this was ok but it left me with as many questions as it did answers so I emailed him to see what else I could learn. Now I wasn't sure I would even get a reply but towards the end of the week he sent me a reply giving me some useful info that left me feeling a little more confident in the plan I had put together.

A view looking towards the sluice

Individual League round 5

Well this weekend saw a long awaited return to action after the last 2 weeks had been wiped out by the weather and the matches cancelled. This week was the re arranged Several Fisheries Trophy match,  it also incorporated round 5 of the individual league and was to be fished on the clubs section of the river Welland through Deeping St James. There were 14 anglers at the draw and the venue had been pegged to try and put everyone on fish as the river was low, Gin clear and lacking any real flow with certain areas completely devoid of any fish. I had however visited the river on the Friday afternoon to have a couple of hours and I had managed 2 1/2lb of fish from a swim 2' 6" deep and as clear as tap water so I was reasonably hopeful. 

High Locks at Deeping St James

Stretton Lakes, Round 4 Deeping Individual League

Due to the fact that most of our local river venues are very poor at the moment the decision was made to switch round 4 of the individual league to a commercial fishery. I for one was not looking forward to this at all as I don't really fish this type of venue very often and had never even seen the chosen venue before. Anyway Stretton Lakes it was then and after a quick look on the internet and asking a few local anglers I was still none the wiser and so I resigned myself to going in blind.

In the week before the match I made myself up a few rigs to cover both Carp and Silver fish, I also sorted out a couple of power kits with suitable elastic in the shape of a No9 hollow and a No12 solid for Carp and for the silver fish I would use a match kit and a No 6 elastic. Bait wise I planned to use Maggot, Casters, Pellets and a little groundbait with a few Pinkies in it but as for a plan I thought I would make it up when I arrived at my peg.

Match day arrived and after the 35 minute drive from my home in Peterborough  I arrived at the venue to find quite a few anglers had braved the cold, 16 in all so not a bad show at all. The weather was overcast and 3 degrees centigrade with hardly any breeze on the water but there were small fish topping all over the lake which by the way was a long strip with islands all down the middle at around 13m. The club had done the sensible thing and missed out every other peg so everybody had a full island feature to fish to. After the normal pre match banter that we all know and love it was time for the draw although at this point I couldn't really see any advantage in any peg as they were all very similar. I drew peg 11 which was mid point along the bank and suited me fine as it was right behind the parking area.


Peg 11 showing the 4 lines I fished



Two weekends and not a single Bite!

Well what can I say, that's 2 weekends, 3 sessions and not a single bite so mildly disappointing to say the least. Sunday last week I had planned a trip to the river Glen with my son as he hadn't been for a while and I thought we could get a few bites on this narrow Fenland river. But it all went wrong when the Deeping St James AC changed venues at the 11th hour from the town Welland to the Glen. They put their match on the West Pinchbeck section and although there were other sections of the river available we didn't see any fish top other than on the match length and so we didn't bother fishing.
On the Monday I decided to have a look at the river Nene at Wansford but after a few really cold days the water temperature was down to 3.5 deg and I tackled up almost with an acceptance that I wouldn't get a bite. This turned out to be the case and after 3 bite less hours I called it a day, I did have a chat to a couple of other anglers before I left and they were doing no better at all with neither of them having a single bite. I was booked into a match this weekend just gone but withdrew myself as I just knew it was going to be hard, this turned out to be the case with only 4 of the 15 anglers catching. The winner had 5oz followed by 2oz and joint 3rd with 1/2oz with most of the catches made up of Minnows.
Anyway I had decided that a trip to Ten Mile Bank on the Great Ouse would be a better option but after 3 hours on the pole and an hour on the feeder I called it a day and made the trip home wondering where my next fish was going to come from.
The forecast for the coming week doesn't look great and the planned league match is up in the air with the club leaving it as late a s possible to choose a venue but we live in hope.

A bad day on the river is always still better than a good day in the office though!

Cheers Mark

River Glen, Round 3 Deeping Individual League.

 Well this Sunday saw me on the river Glen for the first time this season in round 3 of the Deeping St James Individual league, the club had fished it the week before and although I couldn't fish I had been told it was a good match.

We all met up at the Fisherman's Arms pub at Pode Hole  at 08.00 for pre match breakfast and banter before driving the mile or so to the river for the draw, I was 4th into the draw bag and pulled out peg 9 which was about the middle of the stretch



The River Glen at West Pinchbeck





Festive Fishing Exploits

Fishing and Shopping:
Well I don't know about you but I have been fortunate enough to get some fishing in over the festive period. It started on the Wednesday before Xmas with the wife suggesting that I have a mornings fishing before we went and done the final present shopping, I didn't need telling twice and jumped at the chance as I had blanked in the previous Sundays Match.
Anyway I made amends and caught a few fish on what was a bloody cold morning and included some decent Roach on Caster trotting some 20 yards down the swim.
Later that day we went over to Springfields shopping centre in Spalding and just as we were walking back to the car I walked past a shop full of fishing tackle. I thought that's strange as it wasn't there the last time I had visited and on looking up I saw the sign Dragon Carp, now having seen their adverts many times in magazines but never actually visiting any of their shops I just had to go in and have a look. I am not normally really interested in budget tackle but I was intrigued to see what kind of quality the gear was as it was very cheap. I had a quick look around and decided most of it was probably worth the price if you were on a tight budget but not really what I would buy. Just as I was about to leave the shop I noticed the centre pins and just had to see how bad they were for £30 and £40 respectively and so I asked if I could have a closer look at them. Now to say they would not appeal to the purist float anglers would be an understatement but at the price they were definitely functional pieces of kit that I thought worth taking a punt on as a second reel. I paid my £40 and off I went, when I got home I decided to have a closer look at it and compare it to the Okuma I already own. The first thing that I noticed was that the reel would spin for as least as long as the Okuma although it was not silent  with some noise coming from the bearings and a little play in the spool. Next I removed the spool and had a look at the pathetic ratchet mechanism and decided that it would probably fail very early on so I decided to remove it along with the line guide. Well at least I wasn't going to be pissed when something broke or fell off as there isn't a lot left to go wrong, I loaded it with some 2lb line and put it with my tackle ready to field test the next time out.

River Nene - Wansford - Monday 12th December 2011

Today I visited the River Nene at Wansford as I had a day off of work and was hoping for a few fish after blanking on the canal on Sunday. I arrived at the river at 9am and the temperature gauge in the car was reading 2 degrees and with a cold breeze blowing from a westerly direction it was less than inviting.
I decided to fish peg 16 for no other reason than I had never fished it before and the angler below me on the same peg in the last match had only weighed about 2 1/2 lb and I wondered what I could manage.
Anyway I levelled my seat box and sat looking at the peg for a few minutes looking for any signs of fish movement as the water was very cold and clear, I could see the bottom about 5 meters out in 8ft of water.
I set up the pole first and had a plumb around the peg and found 9ft of water at 11.5m which would have to do as fishing any further out would have made presentation difficult with the wind blowing downstream. I also set up an elasticated whip at 5.5m with a 2gr rig for fishing Maggot and Caster over Groundbait.


 Line 1 breadpunch at 11.5m and line 2 Casters at 5.5m to-hand