The Winsford Winter League takes place on the River Weaver, around the town of Winsford, between September and December each year. Winsford is in Cheshire, equidistant from Manchester, and Liverpool, and 17 miles from Chester. There are six rounds fished on Sundays every fortnight. It is a teams of 5 event, and anglers can be placed. In the same way that owners start to take on the characteristics of their dogs, we Winsford WL regulars can be categorised according to our sections: The Marina (stuffed with fish – this section is for glory boys who like to bag-up and see their name in the paper. You can spot Marina regulars as they are the ones always doing their hair, and making sure their gear is clean, in case Anglers Mail or Angling Times want a photo of them) The Red Lion (reasonable fishing – for those who don’t want to walk too far from the pub where we draw. They always tend to have a pint glass in their hands) The Aerosol (hard fishing, except when flooded when it is the place to be. Undoubtedly the most competitive section – elite, heroic anglers battling for mega-precious points. Aerosol lads are the ones carrying 6 ft swing-tip rods) The National – 2 sections here (very hard fishing – for those who don’t like to buy more than half a pint of bait. National anglers look like weather-beaten, haunted, desperate men).
History
Last Cast, and its previous incarnation Whizzo, has finished in the top 3 teams as long as I can remember, and certainly for the last 10 years. In that time, we have won the title many times, but not for several years now. Grange won it last year and Hazel Grove the year before that – so it is time we got back on top. There were 13 teams entered this season, so it is all to play for.
Our team this year consists of six anglers – one extra to cover for drop-outs. Darren Mulheir is on the Marina, Ernie Ayers on Red Lion, me on Aerosol, and Pete and Sean Mulheir on the National sections. Neil Lloyd has stood in for a few matches, and more than kept his end up. All are experienced anglers, most notably Ernie who has fished the river for years and is well-known. I love fishing this league as it is well organised by Dougie (another legend) and it is competitive but friendly. The fishing is for skimmers and roach. If it is clear it will be a roach river, if up and coloured it will be skimmers. But of course, usually the flow is somewhere between these two, and he who calls it right will have a distinct head-start. A lot therefore depends on knowledge of the river and its moods, which makes the locals hard to beat.
Seconds Out, Round 1 You can’t draw hard and fast rules in fishing, but as a general principle, a roach river will see Last Cast do very well. We are certainly able to catch skimmers, but history shows that we do best on the river when there are bites on the pole line. And so when we were greeted by a low, steady, low river on Round 1 things went our way. I set up three rigs for the 12 metre line, which is roughly 8 ft deep on the aerosol, depending on where you draw. These were 1.5g rugby-ball shape (wire stem) for full depth, 0.6g slim cigar type shape (wire stem) also for full depth, and a little canal type float set to about 3 foot deep.
My roach groundbait on the aerosol always consists of some combination of VdE Supermatch (the one on the turquoise packet) and damp leam (preferably dark grey rather than light brown). Early in the series when I’m expecting plenty of bites it may be 100% groundbait. Later in the series where I’m expecting it to be hard it may be 100% leam. But mostly it will be a combination of the two, typically 50/50. I also add in pigeon shit, up to 10%of the mix, mostly when it is harder. Basically, anything that clouds the mix (eg leam, pigeon shit) tends to bring in the smaller roach – not what you want when it is fishing well, but exactly what you want when it is hard.
Round 2 – Steady As She Goes The morning of Round 2 a fortnight later produced a river in similar looking nick. Again I went for a similar approach, although this time cupping in rather than balling. Can’t explain why to be honest, I just felt like it, especially because those who had drawn around me where, I felt, most likely to fish the tip. A word on elastics. Fishing deep rivers demands heavier elastics than you might ordinarily expect given the size of fish. This is especially the case when you are on 1.5g or 2g rigs, when you need to get the olivette moving upwards before you connect with the fish. Having tried many different elastics, I am now totally comfortable with Middy Hi-Viz 4 to 6 (the dark purple one). For my shallow rig I’ll use the Middy Hi-Viz green one (2 to 3 I think). That said, I’ve not had a fish shallow at all so far.
In Round 2 I weighed a big 5lb, but was beaten into second by the Hazel Grove angler, who did me by 8 ounces. I could tell from the dye on his fingers (and from previous form) that he fished bronze maggot and hemp. Back at the car park, we had again done okay as a team, meaning we were top of the league after two rounds.
Round 3 – Bad Angling Round 3 I got wrong. Basically, the river, and the aerosol stretch in particular, fished better than anyone expected. I caught 7lb of roach, fishing maggot, but was beaten by roach weights of 8lb, 9lb and even a 10lb. Most of these were down the other end, and out of sight I simply wasn’t aware I was slipping behind. But I also got beaten on my left by a roach weight, which hurt. My mistake was coming in too close. Once they were feeding well at 12metres, I opened up a closer line at 7m, and unfortunately as it turned out, when I first came in on it I got bites. I thought I was going to empty it, but the swim slowly died on me, and I kept trying to make it work. Even though I kept the long line fed by the time I went back out the rhythm was broken and they were no longer queuing up. I think I came fifth in section. Not a disaster, but vital lost points for the team, and in the individual league which I had been winning at the start of the day. The good news was that Darren Mulheir won the match overall with 17lb roach on the slider. Marina glory boy.
From front, Sean, Pete and Darren Mulheir, plus Pete Woodruffe
Round 4 – Winter Arrives This was a case of where (nearly) everyone got it wrong. The river was up and coloured, and in the pub before-hand everyone was saying it would be skimmers today. This presented a problem for me, as because there had been no rain all week, I had only brought roach baits – no fishmeal, no worms etc. So I ‘borrowed’ a bag of Cudmore fishmeal off Sean Mulheir, and knocked up a skimmer mix for the tip – it would have to be maggot on the hook. But despite others’ optimism I still felt it would be harder than people were saying. You can ‘double-hook’ on the Weaver ie fish with two hooks on your tip rig. Not something I would vote for, but it’s allowed so I do it, as does everyone else. Now if you don’t think fishing is weird – check this out. At the start of the match, I sat on the tip without a bite for an hour. Then a sudden tremor saw me bring in a double-header – two roach at once! Great, they’ve arrived. Straight back out on the tip – no more bites! How does that work?
I then came in on the pole line, and had a few roach before they disappeared. To cut a long story short, I alternated between tip and pole all match, really scratching for bites. I even put a half-ounce bomb on and chucked it right over to the far bank – rarely done on the aerosol as the fish tend to be in the middle. Still, my long chuck (50 reel handle turns) snaffled me two quick bites and two more vital roach, before that line went dead also. At the end of the match, I weighed 1lb 11oz, for second in section. 1lb 12oz won the section, and 1lb 10oz was third. So job done, but again it was a close call. Back at the car park, it turned out we had done reasonably well as a team – a first, a second, two fourths and a struggler. Our closest chasers, Hazel Grove, had done similarly, so with two rounds to go, Last Cast is top by 5 points. In the individual, I guess I’ll still be in the top three, but won’t find out until I see the results-board on the morning of next round.
Looking ahead, we are in a good position, but in reality anything can happen. As the league goes on, and the weather deteriorates, fate plays a bigger and bigger hand. For example, in one of the later rounds last season, every angler on the aerosol blanked, including me. Except for the angler on the end peg who had a tiny roach with two minutes to go. Maximum points for him, zero points for the rest of us. Game over. So I’ll pray for a bit of luck, because in fishing you’ll win nothing without it. Round 5 is this Sunday. I’ll keep you posted.
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hello, I enjoyed reading about your match fishing and tactics particularly. Personally, I have not fished the pole for around 12 years, I tend to fish waggler or feeder for tench, bream and occasionally I try heavier tackle for carp however, I am straying from the original reason that I send this message!!! I was wondering if you have any information about the river weaver from acton bridge (where the two pubs are opposite)up to the railway bridge(near dutton flashes)I just wanted to know if this area gets alot of angling pressure, what the fishing is like, sizes etc etc, I have heard that there are twenty pound + carp in this area and nice bream. I would be most gratefull if you could give me info on this area of the weaver particularly nearer dutton flashes(at railway bridge-acquaduct) thankyou so much sir.
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