Match Report

We took our first trip (in my time at least) up to Bethwins for a match. The first thing I would say is that it was a good job that only 6 turned out for the match as we would have struggled getting any more onto the venue. Although the are two wWe took our first trip (in my time at least) up to Bethwins for a match. The first thing I would say is that it was a good job that only 6 turned out for the match as we would have struggled getting any more onto the venue. Although the are two waters the number of swims are very limited and perhaps we could do with looking to open up one or two more swims on each lake. However I must stress that it needs to be done sympathetically because we do not want to spoil the obvious beauty and tranquility of the venue. Not the quietest water I hasten to add because the sheep in the surrounding fields were very vocal, but this might have been because they had earlier seen Ray Huskisson standing around in the field waiting for the organiser to turn up!

I do have to apologise to Ray and Rab as we were a bit late having underestimated the time it would take to get there. We were also a little cautious as we did pass the police out with the speed cameras on the way. As a little aside – do be a bit careful when you drive to your chosen venue on a Sunday, we heard of a number of anglers being speed gunned in Fittleworth last Sunday and they were in Wisborough Green this week.

Anyway we had 6 anglers with three on each lake and that was pretty much all the sensible (and one not so sensible) swims taken.

Ray, Keith and Steve S were on the upper pond and the stock was quoted as tench to 3lb we all tackled up accordingly and Ray actually said that he thought the fish were generally around the 1lb mark with the very odd better one.

It was interesting to see blows from virtually every area of the lake and I certainly felt that we could be in for a fun day small tench fishing on light tackle.

Well Keith was the first to land a fish – a small perch presumably an escapee or whatever from the lower pond. After a run of small perch Keith did indeed have a small tench a pretty little fish of 4 oz or so.

Steve S had decided to go all out for the tench from the off and although he could see Keith and then Ray catching the occasional perch he sat out on a bigger bait for something a little more substantial. Eventually something turned up but instead of a 2lb tench it turned out to be a fairly vigorous carp of between 4 and 5lb which took a bit of landing on fairly light gear. With that fish in the net a step up in tackle was taken as obviously the fish were a bit bigger than expected. Well the next fish that Steve connected with proved to be much bigger and after a couple of brief runs in open water where it was reasonably under control it then made a concerted run for the trees and with the elastic bottom out and nowhere to go there was that ominous crack and the 6th section of the pole was now 6A and 6B!

After some repair work 6A and 6B become a rather shortened section and Steve had one more smaller carp and a few perch for a total weight of 7 – 13 – 0 which was enough to just win the lake.

Keith in the meantime finally found a better fish which was another carp this time somewhere between 6 and 7 lb which led him a merry dance, but against form he finally managed to net it about 5 minutes before the end of the match. This together with his perch and small tench gave him a total weight of 7 – 10 – 0.

Ray caught perch steadily throughout the match but with nothing as a bonus decided not to bother the scales this time round.

We perhaps need to reconsider our stock description for this lake as anglers could get seriously caught out!