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Angling: New campaign gets off to promising start
I must admit to being a little optimistic when it comes round to the opening week of a new fishing season on rivers and drains.
I must admit to being a little optimistic when it comes round to the opening week of a new fishing season on rivers and drains.I still see June 16 as a very special day and as it turned out this year so do quite a few others too.
Despite the magical day falling on a Tuesday, there were still a lot of anglers on the bank eager to give it a go and for once my prediction of a good start to the new campaign came true. Well it did for the many anglers that reported their catches to me.
The River Nene fished well with skimmers, bream tench and a huge carp reported from the Oundle sections. The carp was taken on the waggler with two maggots on 4lb line and weighed in at 22lb - a fish of a lifetime and a day to remember for one lucky angler.
Stibbington and Waternewton produced good bags of chub, skimmers and even a few roach while further downstream around the city centre, skimmers and bream have been taken to a groundbait feeder.
There have been the odd bream weights from the River Welland but unfortunately I have not heard of anyone really bagging up.
The fen drains saw some fine catches. The North Level, Twenty Foot and Forty Foot all fished well and on the Old Nene at Benwick one angler bagged eight big tench to chopped worm and caster.
So, all in all a good start with the prospect of a much better season, particularly with the roach showing so early in a new campaign.
The big match from the first weekend of the season has to be the King of the Fens summer series run by Parson Drove rod John Spalton.
Spalton has worked wonders getting so many teams up to fish this event at a time when team match fishing is supposed to be finished.
Over the past couple of years our fen drains have been underused in the summer and I would say, a little too heavily fished on some sections in the winter.
Spalton puts a lot of faith in them and is being rewarded with a good turnout and hopefully some very good results.
The first match was fished on the North Level Drain which showed the water in good if not spectacular form.
Top individual with 10lb 7oz of roach was Danny Hardy, who took a net of skimmers and roach from one of the fancied end pegs.
Stan Binge came second with a small fish catch for 10lb 3oz followed by Allan Holton fishing for March AC with 8lb 15oz.
On the team front Stanjay Gold from Huntingdon take an early lead followed by Lincs County then Wisbech-based Sensas Mark One.
Next match in the series is in a couple of weeks time on the Old Nene at Benwick so Spalton will be running an open match on the venue this coming Sunday. Give him a call to get all the details.
Roger Lee topped the opening day Oundle club match on the River Nene with a very impressive 16lb 9oz of skimmers but then weights dropped off.
Allan Smith came second on 5lb 9oz followed by Neil Haberly with 1lb 15oz.
Ramsey AS members have now moved off stillwaters and onto their own venues and on the top end of the Forty Foot, Paul Kilby took top spot in the Thursday evening event.
Kilby fished chopped worm and caster to snatch victory on the final cast, netting a 5lb tench to give him a total of 7lb 14oz. Second place went to Ivan Steels with 2lb 7oz followed by Chris Whitehall on a level 2lb.
Sunday's match was at Staffurth's Bridge and with one half of the match length coloured some big weights were expected.
Surprisingly though all the leading weights came from the opposite end, Kevin Peacock taking the honours with 9lb 10oz of roach and skimmers. Andrew Kilby came second on 8lb 1oz followed by Paul Kilby with 7lb 11oz.Warmington's opening match of the new campaign saw their anglers on the Nene at Fotheringay but unfortunately sport was not as good as expected.
Top rod with a respectable 8lb 11oz of skimmers taken on the pole with red maggot was Martin Holton. Second on 4lb 2oz came Mel Saggers followed by Pat Woods with 3lb 5oz of roach on hemp seed
Weed-cutting had been taking place along the Cock Bank Drain and with quite a lot of floating weed about bait presentation was difficult for the Whittlesey AC members.
John Hudson managed to find a way through though. He bagged a couple of tench together with some eels to romp home with 11lb 12oz.
Second place went to Dave Jarrett with 8lb 1oz followed by Roger Biddle with 4lb 13oz. The match was fished on the noted pegs around Burnt House Bridge.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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