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.

 

 

 

 

 

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