Yet another unusual day!!!!

With an anticyclone set hard over the British Isles then the skies were clear with a heavy frost to start with. Furthermore there were pockets of fog around, no wind, and on arrival at 8.30am there was a mist covering the lake and ice at its edges. However, with the clear skies the temperature rose quickly and by 11am the frost had disappeared. There was very little ripple and most of the lake was as "smooth as a mill pool".

Iver only had nine competitors whereas Croxley had eleven. So George Bartlett fished for Iver, being a dual member, giving ten per team.

In addition to our twenty competitors there were many other fisherman to swell the numbers to between thirty and forty. So bank space was limited and some of the 'nicer' spots were taken by the time our match started at 9.00am. Fortunately the fish were localised on the far bank in the small bay which is where many of the Iver competitors headed for.

Ken, Allen, Roy, Stan and Ron started fishing beside each other on the far bank directly opposite the lodge whereas most of the others headed for the small bay (lucky for them!!). By 10.00am Roy and Allen had a fish each with Ron having another. But it was hard going in that area when suddenly Dave appeared saying that he had caught his limit farther around in the bay. Needless to say the Iver men away from the bay headed that way. However, the bay was very busy and one had to wait one's turn to slot in.

Roy, who had caught one fish so far, slotted in and immediately caught 2 fish on the same cast - one to go. On his next cast he caught THREE on this single cast. He managed to shake one off but never the less had to land the other two. His spare one (his fifth) went to the extra vacant free ticket that Iver had (ten for the price of nine).

With Roy having finished then Ken stepped in to the vacant space. He still needed his four fish. Not to worry, he got his four fish in five casts. Why five cast? Because on one cast he lost one at the net, the other four casts being successful.

Allen, with one fish so far, then stepped in to where Ken had vacated and polished off his remaining three fish in tree casts.

And so it went on, with Ray and George soon slotting in to limit.

Meanwhile Bill Johnson was elsewhere working hard for his fish. He caught them all and although he was the last to finish he had the pleasure of a full morning's fishing.

Perhaps catching fish so easily is a sad state of affairs. On the other hand one could argue that Iver found where the fish were and used teamwork to get the most fish out of the day. This can be seen in that Croxley only managed thirtythree fish, seven down on Iver. Had they better employed their teamwork then they could have easily made up the losing five lbs.

Most of Iver had finished by lunchtime. When the final whistle went at 3pm the weigh-in showed that Iver had won and so were presented with the newly acquired trophy.

Concurrently with this match ran the Officer's Match which somehow had slipped through the net in the preceding months. Ron Lusardi was the successful winner with his 11lbs 2oz catch.