Winter!

Alright guys! It’s been a while I know but I’ve been pretty busy if I’m honest! Just before Christmas I had my first set of exams for this year, then I sprained my ankle, and then when I’m not at school or doing homework then I’ve been fishing! So I haven’t really had time to write for you all. But I’m just gonna give you a summary of my winter so far.

ANGLING TIMES WINTER LEAGUE

As you might all know I joined Trabucco South East at the end of the summer last year. Not in the league of Dorking or Starlets or anything else, but a good group of blokes who love their fishing just as much as anyone else! We fished the Sussex winter league this year and got off to a cracking start coming joint first in the first round at Stubb Pond with Surrey Starlets. After that we had a few blow outs and dropped a bit, but we clawed it back at finished the league on level points with Starlets for first place. BUT (and yes there is always a bloody but!) they managed to beat us on count back of how many rounds won so we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t win the league but we had qualified for the semi this year which i was pleased about as I’d never fished one before! The semi was due to be at Gold Valley which is a cracking venue don’t get me wrong, but it can be pretty peggy in places like any commercial in the winter, and especially with it being Dorking’s home venue we were bound to have our work cut out for the next few weeks practicing!

So we got to practicing for it for a few weeks BUT then came the big freeze! The lakes had all frozen and we had our work cut out when we were hacking through four inches of ice! The ice was so thick that Will Raison could walk around on Bungalow lake to cut holes out! However we got through it eventually, especially with the help of Will Raison’s 15lb ice breaker with a chainsaw chain to cut through the ice. Looking up the lake it was madness, people trying to break ice with sledge hammers, dumbbells everything. People were having 15lb weight made! Then you saw Will’s peg, he managed every week to cut out a perfect channel which must have been 14.5 metres long! He’s an animal!

The fishing was pretty grim and not many caught for the first few weeks. However, on the third week I had a cracking day sport and caught 6lb of roach in about 3 hours on bloodworm being beat by the two ends and Des Shipp who is… I’m not quite sure how to put it… amazing at bloodworm fishing!

But then it all defrosted and the fishing went very bad, people struggling for bites not being able to catch carp on the tip or roach on the pole. My best weight I think was five pound. Fishing like that de-motivates you and made me want to give up fishing forever, but i know that the more i go the more i will learn and the more chance i have of doing well in the semi! However, it’s warming up now and plenty of skimmers are showing with some nice carp weights coming out as well so it’s all looking good for next week’s semi!

STAFFORD MOORE SILVERMANIA

All this aside I have to say my best weekend this winter was when i went up to Stafford Moore. The fishing is amazing!

The Silver mania festival is a two day silverfish only event run Saturday and Sunday and is worth two grand for the winner. You have to win your section on day one to fish the final for the big cash prize! But if you don’t qualify there’s always the option of fishing an open match run for everyone else which is still silverfish only.

We arrived early Friday to meet up with the infamous Range brothers! Pete and Steve Randall are two of the best and most helpful anglers I know, their mainly known across the Midlands circuit and own the Sensas distribution for that area which they bought off Joe Roberts a while back, so they are two knowledgeable and brilliant blokes.

We got to fishing straight away practicing on Woodpecker on pegs 8 – 10. We caught mainly roach with some skimmers, tench and crucians as well all over chopped worms. I tried loose feeding and found that it caught more roach than anything, whereas Steve fished pellets and found it too slow. And Pete and my dad Adrian fished chopped worm without loose feeding just cupping in and caught double what me and Steve had! So we based our plan around a chopped worm line at 11 metres where we would feed with a big pot. We also loose fed at 5 metres as a back up line for some roach in case our main like didn’t work or needed resting.

So it was off to the pub, not a good idea when you’re with Pete, Steve and Mushy (Lee Farmer) who have got to be the three most infamous drinkers in fishing. Alot of beer later it was off to bed in the hope that I recovered by the next day!

Day one saw me draw on pines with my back to tanners, I was one out the corner and wasn’t in a bad area. So I set my tackle up and fished a blinder! It wasn’t one a chuck, but it was the best days fishing I had had for months. I ended up putting 27lb on the scales mainly of skimmers with a few crucians. I was gutted to find out I had been beaten by 8 ounces for the section by the opposite end peg. Never mind eh?!

Out of our group me and mushy were both first out, dad drew on the dam wall on Josephs which isn’t a good area and was beaten by someone who fished corn and meat and caught 8 PROPER BREAM! Who would of thought of it! Steve was unlucky drawing a bad area and Pete managed to win his section! So we still had high hopes of someone winning it for us especially as Pete is one of the best at Stafford Moore!

The next day I drew on Josephs and struggled as it was so windy and was lashing down. However, I put together a respectable 9lb of roach off my short line and got beat by two ounces for the sect. But dad had done the business and had 20lb from in the mangroves opposite and managed to snatch a lake win! Mushy won his lake and Steve who drew my peg from the day before had a disaster day!

Pete however drew the wrong side of the lake in the final on tanners. He was winning the match all the way around to the other side until four or five topped his weight with Ian Didcote being the best of them with 50lb. So congratulations to him with two cracking nets of fish. I even had the pleasure of weighing him in on day one and he truly did have a beautiful net of fish!

Even though we hadn’t won it we had an amazing weekend, caught plenty of fish, drunk loads of beer, and most of all had a laugh which makes fishing worthwhile! My thanks go to Andy Serie who runs a superb fishery with some amazing sport to be had!

I even managed to go away with a souvenir t-shirt! Roll on next year’s!

So in summary I’ve not had a bad winter. I had a brilliant time at Stafford Moore with some brilliant people, my team qualified for the winter league semi and most of all I’ve had a laugh!

Keep looking to see how I get on next week! I’m off to what is supposed to be the next Stafford Moore on Saturday and I’m making my Winter League semi debut!