www.iverflyfishers.co.uk

 

NEWS LETTER- AUTUMN 2007

 

Dear Member

Note that the AGM will be held at the HorseMoor Centre on Tuesday December 11th. Please attend as there are rule changes that are being proposed. Read last year’s AGM report by visiting www.Iverflyfishers.co.uk/AGM2006.htm

 

For Further information please contact:

 

Ken Williams - 01753 819447

 

PS:   The website is now being updated regularly.

 

 

 

Future of the Horsemoor Centre

Although there were rumours that the room rental charges may be increased beyond our means nothing has been forthcoming. Hence we remain at the Horsemoor Centre until further notice. However, the numbers that attend every 2nd & 4th Tuesday give cause for concern and may be discussed at the AGM. 

 

Subs.

For future reference, these were due on Oct 1st for the 2007/8 season.

They are :-

Full membership                                   £20

Concession (over 65 & disabled)          £15

Juniors                                                  £5

 

 

 

New Year’s Dinner

This years dinner will once again be held at the Aurora in Windsor on Saturday Feb 9th. Please contact Ken (phone number as above) for details and menu. You must make a selection from the limited menu options prior to the evening (asap please). Cost £22 per person, some wine included in the price.

Please phone Ken Williams (phone number as above) for information.

Summary for 2007

Now that fishing for 2007 is over it is time for reflection.

This year has been a very poor year for Iver. Was this because of the poor summer, poor stocking, lack of skills, just bad luck or something else?

In the Southern Fed we did not achieve any successes and in the AMFC we came last and have been relegated to division 2 for 2008 (a bit of bad luck though in this case).

If one looks at the numbers of fish caught in Iver’s matches for the second half of the year one can see a marked decline. Room for thought!

To finish the disappointment the annual match against Queen Mother in the autumn at Hanningfield did not take place (note that just prior to Iver’s own club match at Hanningfield in the autumn it was rumoured that Queen Mother who were due to have their own match at Hanningfield cancelled it because of poor catches).

 

Christmas Match 2007

This will once again be held at Bushyleaze the day after Boxing Day, Thursday the 27th December.

This event is a ‘merry Xmas’ event with the spirit of Xmas in mind. Burgers provided during the lunchtime break, bring your own tittle!! 
Pairs match at Eyebrook, 19th July 2007

Turnout was ok bearing in mind that Eyebrook is about 100 miles from Iver.

With all the rain that we have had recently we could have expected a downpour at some stage but on this day the weather was kind, just a little drizzle at times, and overcast for the whole day except for the odd minute of sun. With a nice gentle breeze and ripple the conditions seemed perfect and one could have expected a good catch. However, all was not was it seemed. For many it was yet another day to forget. Yet, credit due where it is deserved, several (the few) of us found fish and had a reasonable bag. One non-Iver pair fished at the far end of the reservoir and caught 15 fish between them so right place, right time, right method and you could be in.

Danny had at least a dozen takes or follows in the first hour but only caught one of them. He thought that with that number of takes/follows in the first hour then we would have a good day and make a killing. How wrong!! Once again, as the day progressed it got harder and you had to take the opportunities when they arose. The number of takes had diminished  but Danny did catch two more but lost many many more including one that broke him. His partner, Allen, caught one in the morning but could not get them to stay on, having lost two that were on for a while but then came off.

Meanwhile Stan and Ken fished off a point halfway up the western side, close in. The boat was such that Stan could cast towards the bank whereas that was difficult for Ken. Using his intermediate and a razzler he caught six, yes six fish near to the bank for just over 12lbs to get the highest individual weight of the day. But his partner Ken, using a similar technique, but not near the bank, caught nothing. Not his day. Shows how right place, right time, right technique can have a fine line.

Everybody was using floaters or intermediates as the fish appeared to be near the top. Guest Barry King did try a HiDi for a while until his partner was catching on an Intermediate so he changed. No one else tried near the bottom.

Praise to Ray and John. They fished steadily during the day and although the number of fish was not high, with a 4lb fish that Ray caught it was enough. Near the end of the match they were drifting near the lodge but had to move out because they became more squeezed between a boat and the bank. How fortunate, with a few minutes to go John caught his other fish which gave them the Pairs Trophy, just clipping Stan’s brave effort.. Well done, credit where it is due.

As for the rest, then it was frustration as can be seen from the results.

After the match, on the way home, the heavens opened. We were lucky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EYEBROOK RESULTS

 

 

 

 

NAME

CAUGHT

WEIGHT

BEST R

PAIR BAG

Ray Simpson

4

10lbs   6ozs

4lbs   4ozs

13lbs 14ozs

John Weaver

2

  3lbs   8ozs

 

(best pair)

 

 

 

 

 

Ron Lusardi

2

  3lbs   7ozs

 

 

Jeff Hickson

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roy Palmer

2

  3lbs   6ozs

 

 

Bill Johnson

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reg Renn

2

  2lbs   9ozs

 

 

Brian Witty

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ken William

0

 

 

 

Stan King

6

12lbs   5ozs

2lbs 12ozs

Best Individual

 

 

 

 

 

Danny Peet

3

  4lbs   9ozs

 

 

Allen Dixon

1

  1lb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   GUESTS

 

 

 

 

Bill Nash

5

  7lbs  

 

 

Barry King

5

10lbs   9ozs

2lbs 13ozs

 

 

 

Other Matches in 2007

Disabled Events  :-

The English Disabled Fly Fishers (EDFF) have regular matches, mainly at Eyebrook this year but one at Grafham. Some of the Iver members attend these matches, although some are associated members (Roy & Ken). Danny Peet, Roy Palmer, Ken Williams, Mick Hill, Steve Radcliffe and Eddie Gray have all fished in these events at various times. The final was in September in which Ken and Roy were boatmen (Ken won a bottle of Whiskey as best boatman - heaviest boat bags). They steered the boat while two other disabled persons fished. There is an additional match, called the ‘Fur & Feather’ match, in October. Danny, the secretary, did particularly well in this with best bag. Although there was no cup for this match Danny was never the less presented with a free boat ticket for his win. Roy also did well in this match being 2nd to win a bottle of 10yr old malt whisky. On another occasion he caught the largest fish at 6lbs 2ozs.

 

Southern Fed  (Sun April 15th 2007 at Bewl) :-

This year match to represent England was a quiet event for Iver. Although many of our members attended the various events none actually did well enough.

There were 5 Iver members who fished, Roy Palmer, Ray Simpson, John Weaver, Reg Renn & Ken Williams unfortunately none of them were in the first 6 places so none will be in the national at Grafham in September. Better luck next year.

 

Ray  Simpson

5 fish

Ken Williams

2

Reg Renn

3

John Weaver

2

Roy Palmer

2

 

One needed 7 fish to qualify!!!!

Meanwhile Clive Collier who fished the South Eastern equivalent got through the first round. Because of the large numbers of anglers in this region he must fish a second knockout qualifier. Good luck to Clive.

Boat Match at Grafham, 8th Sept 2007

Before the match started Ray said ‘you will be glad to get home tonight, it is very hard’. And so it was.

The weathermen indicated that it would be warm with some sunshine. However, it was overcast all day with a chilly north-westerly wind. Conditions did seem good but reports indicated that for many weeks it had been VERY hard. Having said that there were many big brownies coming out to bank anglers fishing from the jetties. And today was no exception. At finish time we discovered that several big Browns had been caught there, but returned. As the angler said, a Brown can live for 10 years unlike a rainbow so they were put back. Nice to see conservation. Furthermore one boat had anchored up at the entrance to the jetties and had caught 7 fish each. They were using a 3 inch tube fly. We now know that the fish were after the fry that were abundant in the harbour and that a suitable fly could reap benefits. Hindsight! Danny and Roy tried there at the start, with some success but moved off right over to the other side. Nearing the other side they saw a boat catching fish so they settled there for the rest of the day – more on that later.

As for the rest of us, well, it was very hard, fish being few and far between but with a few semi successes. The fish just did not want to know (unless you had the right kit and in the right place?). A glance at the results indicates how hard it was. As Ray said at the start, I was glad to be going home. The crew were trying everything, floaters, midge-tips, intermediates, sinkers, HiDis, drifting, anchoring up, the dam, but with only the occasional fish if you were fortunate.

Now to the success story. Danny and Roy, after trying at the harbour, moved over to the other side where they could see fish being caught. Danny was using a booby minky and a Di 3 and Roy (not having this fly) used just a minky. Danny had a successful day and finished his limit at 4.45pm. Right place, right fly, right line, right technique – what a boy!! But partner Roy only had 2 fish when Danny finished. So Roy borrowed Danny’s tackle and caught one more before it was time to come in. So was it the booby minky that did the trick? Fry bashing? All credit to Danny whatever it was.

Mick Hill also had some success with the heaviest fish.

Highlights? Two very large bream were caught, one by Steve and one by Ray. Ray thought that he had caught the fish of a lifetime until he realized that it was behaving strangely whilst playing it. He thought that it might be a brown, but alas no.

 

Name

Num Fish

Weight

Best Rbow

Best Brown

Danny Peet

8

15lbs   3ozs

 

 

Roy Palmer

3

  6lbs   8ozs

2lbs   8ozs

 

Mick Hill

4

10lbs   2ozs

3lbs   6ozs

 

Steve Radcliffe

0

 

 

 

Ken Williams

1

  2lbs   3ozs

 

2lbs 3ozs

John Weaver

1

  1lb   12ozs

 

 

Ron Lusardi

2

  4lbs   8ozs

 

2lbs 3ozs

Jeff Hickson

0

 

 

 

Allen Dixon

1

  1lb   13ozs

 

 

Ray Simpson

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boat Match at Hanningfield, Oct 20th 2007

The weather was predicted to be overcast with wind from the south east. As it turned out there was more sun than cloud, especially in the morning. The wind started off as coming from the east but as the day progressed it swirled around180 degrees through south and finished up coming from the west. At one point the water was like a mill pool but generally there was a small pleasant breeze and any cold chill stayed away once the day got going. It was, overall, a pleasant day for fishing bearing in mind it was October.

The water level was about 6 foot down which surprised me after all the rain that we have had. This made some parts un-fishable. I noticed that there were no bank anglers off the jetty where the big browns are often caught?!

It was rumored that fishing was poor, very low catches, so much so that a few weeks earlier the Queen Mother Club had cancelled their Hanningfield match. Suggestions were because of the pumping in of water?  The omens were not good and I was prepared for a blank.

Six boats set off at 9am (although one boat sneaked off a little earlier, naughty) and headed all over the reservoir. Personally I and my son Matthew (nice to see him back in circulation after a year abroad) tried near the harbour, then the southern end of the VERY LONG bubbles. We had a few takes but no catches. Then Stan, at the southern tip of bubbles caught what may have been the first Iver fish about mid-morning. So there were fish around! Then we moved to the far eastern end of the inlet bay, not far from the dam. It was too shallow so we moved again.  Unfortunately we moved north along the dam instead of south into the Inlet Bay. A costly mistake as you will see. We went to the bay at the far north end of the dam. It was dead! We went back to just off the southern end of the bubbles, towards the Inlet Bay. It was now about 1.00pm. Phone calls indicated that there were many blanks, including our boat. With the morning gone I had expected the rest of the day to be worse. But then everything changed, the wind changed direction to come from the west and blow into Inlet Bay. Fish were now being caught in the Inlet Bay. Word got around and soon everybody moved and I counted 14 boats in the area, some anchored, some drifting in the slow breeze (no drogue necessary). Although we personally were not right in the congestion zone we started to catch fish and eventually Matthew got three and I got two. What I did notice was that my two fish were very thin and did not put up much of a fight. Had they been salmon I would have called them kelts. Was this because they had not been feeding properly for weeks? Malcolm was fishing in the congestion zone and for the first time trying the ‘washing line’ technique which gained him his two fish. His partner Brian managed a few fish but lost a big one at the net after a snag (tough! - again). Meanwhile Roy was struggling and at the finish was not happy with his just two fish (better luck next time) while his partner Bill had 4. Stan had progressed slowly to improve his score but nothing exceptional, again all in the Inlet Bay. Commiserations to his partner Ken!

But there is always someone who bucks the trend and this day there were four of them as you can see by the results. Right place, right time, right technique. Well done. They used a variety of methods and flies, mainly Intermediates  with Boobies or Diawal Bachs. Black Boobies seemed to do quite well.

At the weigh-in it was congratulations to Mick Hill who got both heaviest bag and fish to win the day, a day that turned out to be much better than I had feared.

 

So this was the last match of the year that counts towards trophies. There are two more ‘friendlies’ to go, one against Croxley Hall at Bushy in November and the Xmas match, probably at Bushy on Dec 27th.

Overall I think that this year has been a poor year for fishing when compared to previous years – a matter that must be taken into consideration when the venues/dates are taken into consideration for next year.

 

Diawal Bachs. Black Boobies seemed to do quite well.

 

 

 

Name

Caught

Weight

Best Rainbow

(no Browns)

Ken Williams

0

 

 

 

Stan King

3

  7lbs 02ozs

 

 

Roy Palmer

2

  3lbs 04ozs

 

 

Bill Johnson

4

  7lbs 13ozs

 

 

Allen Dixon

2

  3lbs 06ozs

 

 

Matthew Dixon

3

  5lbs 07ozs

 

 

Ray Simpson

6

11lbs 03ozs 

 

 

John Weaver

8

16lbs 08ozs

 

 

Mick Hill

8

22lbs 07ozs

6lbs 00ozs

Heaviest bag/fish

Steve Radcliffe

6

13lbs 13ozs

4lbs 02ozs

 

Malcom Golding

2

  4lbs 06ozs

 

 

Brian Witty

2

  4lbs 02ozs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change of Postal/Email Address

It is important that the addresses are kept up to date so that you can receive all the latest information. In particular should you acquire an Email Address for the first time then we can forward information by email – saves paper, postage, time, etc.

So please keep us up to date by either filling in the attached form or, if you are online, selecting the following :- www.Iverflyfishers.co.uk/Addressupdate  


Match against Croxley Hall, Saturday November 3rd.

This was the annual get together with Croxley to contest the Iver/Croxley trophy. The moral of this event as is often the case, especially at Bushy, is right place right time.

The weather was kind. It started off very sunny although by noon there was almost total cloud cover. The temperature climbed to perhaps 15C with very little wind and ripple at this top end. The occasional northerly breeze did break up the mill pond that persisted around this northern half. I noticed that Steve put his coat on when the cloud came over and a little chill developed. What of the southern end? Read on to find out what had been going on there. 

There were 11 members in each team. Although Croxley actually had 15 members at the event only the first 11 to do the draw for the walk-off were selected for the competition.

At the walk-off anglers headed in all directions all around the lake. John placed himself on the point towards the northeast of the lake whilst 5 of us, Ray, Malcolm, Steve, Bobby and myself (Allen) headed for the bay opposite the club house near the north west corner. This was often a hot spot. However, after an hour or so the 5 of us were getting worried. Although the fish were coming we had thought about the possibility of blanking. However, by noon the 5 of us had 1 or 2 fish each but it was obvious that we may not limit, especially as the afternoon was approaching, usually the quieter period. We could see John on the other side slowly pulling out the fish and by noon he had 3. There were fish around, rising and jumping, but the majority seemed to be out towards the middle and did not want to play.

Stan decided to move around noon towards the southern end. Around 1 o’clock Bobby and Allen decided to move that way to. On the way we met Roy who had finished and told that the fish were at the southern end and that the other members of the team had either limited or were waiting to get into the hot spots to do so.

Roy, Brian, Ken and George had finished, some by 10.30am. So we raced to that end to see Stan, who had recently moved there, trying for his last which he soon got. Bobby had stepped into the slot beside him and after 30 minutes or so had also finished. Roy told the others to come along but Malcolm retired. At this point it was about 2pm and Ray, Allen and Steve stepped in. But time was running out. There was plenty of ripple this end but it was not easy casting into the wind. It was the afternoon doldrums time and further more, having been slaughtered, the fish decided to move out. Steve did manage another and also got broke but that was it before the finish at 3.30pm. We did notice that a boat, more towards the middle, was hauling the fish out so the shoals  had obviously moved there.

Back at the lodge for the weigh in a Croxley member was heard to say that although there were lots of fish at the southern end one particular beat had been heaving with them. To get in that beat was another matter. Had not Iver found and exploited the beats the final result may have been different. Praise must go to John who was the only member of the team to limit away from the southern end – on the point. Well done.

All sorts of lines were used, Floaters, Intermediates and Hi-Dis, together with all sorts of flies, Boobies, Wrazlers, Buzzers, various lures and also Cat’s Whiskers which apparently, as George said, was a killer. At the weigh-in Iver had well and truly beaten Croxley by 27lbs. Unfortunately Croxley, who had won the previous year, had not been able to retrieve the trophy in time for a presentation.

 

Name

Caught

Weight

Best Rbow

Ken Williams

  4

  11lbs 10ozs

 

Roy Palmer

  4

  12lbs   4ozs

 

John Weaver

  4

  13lbs   0oz

3lbs   8ozs

Ray Simpson

  2

    5lbs 13ozs

 

Malcolm Golding

  2

    6lbs   1oz

 

Steve Radcliffe

  2

    7lbs   5ozs

 

Allen Dixon

  1

    3lbs   8ozs

3lbs   8ozs

Stan King

  4

  11lbs 15ozs

 

Bobby King

  4

  11lbs   0oz

 

Brian Whity

  4

  10lbs 10ozs

 

George Bartlett

  4

  12lbs   2ozs

3lbs 12ozs

 

35

105lbs 4ozs

 

 

 

 

 

Croxley

  2

  7lbs   2ozs

 

 

  4

10lbs 12ozs

 

 

  1

  2lbs 15ozs

 

 

  1

  2lbs   8ozs

 

 

  4

11lbs 12ozs

 

 

  3

  8lbs   2ozs

 

 

  0

-

 

 

  0

-

 

 

  4

13lbs 14ozs

 

 

  4

11lbs 12ozs

 

 

  3

  9lbs   8ozs

 

 

26

78lbs   5ozs